EdPolicyWorks Speaker Series: Melissa Lyon
The Causes and Consequences of U.S. Teacher Strikes, 2007-2023
- - EDT
- Holloway Hall (Bavaro Hall 116)
Abstract
The U.S. has witnessed a recent resurgence of labor activism, with public school teachers at the forefront. We examine how teacher strikes affect compensation, working conditions, and productivity with an original dataset of 772 teacher strikes impacting roughly 11.5 million students between 2007 and 2023. Using an event study framework, we find that, on average, strikes increase annual compensation by 8% and lower pupil-teacher ratios by ~0.5 students, driven largely by new state revenues. We find little evidence that strikes impact student achievement in the medium-term, though strikes lasting 10 or more days decrease math achievement in the short-term.

Speaker Bio
Melissa Arnold Lyon is an assistant professor of public policy at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany, SUNY. Melissa studies the political economy of education policy, focusing on labor, governance, and teacher politics and policy. Her current work centers around labor politics (especially teacher strikes), teacher labor markets, and shifts in education governance like state takeover. Her research has been published in journals including Educational Researcher, Journal of Human Resources, American Educational Research Journal, Political Behavior, Education Finance and Policy, Urban Affairs Review, Economics of Education Review, and Policy Studies Journal. Her work has been covered extensively in national and local news media, including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, CNN, The TODAY Show, NPR’s Morning Edition, and CBS News. Melissa received her Ph.D. from Columbia University. Prior to graduate school, she was a sixth grade teacher in Houston, Texas.
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