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A detailed study of more than 770 teacher strikes in the United States between 2007 and 2023 found that the strikes benefit teachers and classrooms, and have no measurable impact on students.

Melissa Arnold Lyon, an assistant professor of public policy at Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, was the lead author of the study, "The Causes and Consequences of U.S. Teacher Strikes," published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The study looked at how strikes affect public school teacher wages, working conditions and productivity, as well as the reasons behind the strikes. The authors found that 89% of strikes were in part for higher wages and more than 50% were for improved conditions such as lower class size and increases in support staff.

And the strikes largely work. Teacher pay rose on average by 8% by the fifth year after a strike; class sizes went down and per-student spending went up; and school districts spent more on student support staff such as nurses and social workers.

"Despite legal restrictions in many states, teacher strikes have proven to be powerful tools for advancing worker interests, contrasting sharply with the decline in strike effectiveness in the 1980s and 1990s," Lyon said, noting that people had "written off the effectiveness of strikes since Reagan fired thousands of striking air traffic controllers in 1981. However, this research shows that in the past 16 years teacher strikes have been potent forms of leverage for achieving compensation gains in the public sector."

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