The teacher strike is the public equivalent of an industrial action: it’s loud and visible, aimed at a broad policy issue, and usually short. But it’s also controversial, because of the disruption it causes to students and families. And some states and localities outlaw it.
A new study reveals that, while teacher strikes have a clear effect on negotiating outcomes—teachers’ pay rises by an average of $1,500 per pupil when they go on strike—they don’t reduce educational productivity in the long run. But the results are complicated: strikes lasting more than two weeks do have a negative impact on student test scores, and the longer the strike lasts, the greater the impact.
Most teacher strikes are local and focused on issues specific to a district’s collective-bargaining agreement, such as wages, health care costs, and planning time. But 89 percent of them also sought other changes to working conditions, such as smaller class sizes and more support staff. And 10 percent of the strikes addressed issues only loosely related to schools, such as housing and immigration policy.
The authors of the 2024 study analyzed 772 teacher strikes and found that, in order to be willing to walk out for three or more days, teachers need four antecedent conditions: They must be convinced that their objectives are important and worthwhile; they must be convinced that the objectives cannot be achieved through other methods that are not as high-intensity and high-risk as a strike; they must believe that the strike will have public support; and they must believe that they can sustain a strike until they achieve their objective.
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