A new working paper by an accomplished team of researchers uses a new dataset to dive deep into the dynamics and impacts of teacher strikes. This paper provides a fresh perspective on why these strikes happen, how they influence school districts, and their broader implications on education policy and student achievement.
Teachers play an outsized role in American organized labor, especially as overall union participation has declined by 60 percent since 1970. Today, K–12 public school teachers make up 18 percent of all unionized workers, and in 2018, when the “Red for Ed” teacher movement swept the country, nearly four in five workers who participated in large work stoppages were K–12 teachers.
To analyze the role of strikes in American public education, the researchers reviewed 90,000 news articles and other public records, creating a database of 772 teacher strikes across the U.S. from 2007 to 2023. These data provide a unique view of teacher strikes, shedding light on both the reasons behind them and the changes that occur in their wakes.
They find that teacher strikes are relatively rare in the U.S. The median year in their dataset saw just 12.5 strikes, and most strikes lasted two days or less. Still, some years saw many more strikes, and the researchers estimate that the strikes included in their study disrupted the education of approximately 12 million students, resulting in 48 million days of idle student time over sixteen years. There is extreme variation in the number of strikes across states, however, with Pennsylvania leading the nation in teacher strikes, while other states, such as Texas, seeing none at all.
Analyzing strike motivations, the researchers find that teacher pay and benefits are the most common concerns, cited in 89 percent of strikes. Over half of the strikes also demanded improved working conditions—such as smaller class sizes, increased funding, more support staff, or better facilities. Interestingly, about 10 percent of strikes raised issues only loosely connected to schools, such as housing and immigration policy.
Certain types of districts are more likely to experience strikes, particularly larger, urban, or suburban districts and those with lower education spending, more racial diversity, or higher poverty levels. Strikes coordinated across districts and often aimed at influencing state policy were more common in conservative states during the study period.
To assess the effects of teacher strikes on district policies and student outcomes, the researchers employed a difference-in-difference analysis. The results show that strikes often result in some tangible improvements for teachers: By the fifth year after a strike, annual teacher compensation increased by an average of 8 percent, or around $10,000, and non-instructional staff salaries rose by about 7 percent, as well. These benefits, however, were unevenly distributed, as a quarter of districts saw no significant change in teacher pay post-strike.
Funding for these compensation increases primarily came from state budgets, not from reallocations of district funds or local tax hikes. The researchers say that this suggests that teacher strikes serve as strong public signals to state leaders about teachers’ concerns related to increased education funding.
Given that most strikes were short, researchers found little evidence of significant academic impact from these brief disruptions. However, longer strikes lasting two weeks or more did have a small negative effect on students’ math achievement, effects that lasted about two years. Over the longer term, they estimate slight positive effects in math scores, which they argue may be due to the increased resources obtained through the strikes. Yet because these positive effects in math coincided with small declines in reading performance, the net academic impact of strikes is minimal.
SOURCE: Melissa Arnold Lyon, Matthew A. Kraft, and Matthew P. Steinberg, “The Causes and Consequences of US Teacher Strikes,” EdWorkingPaper No. 24-1032, Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University (2024).
