Pennsylvania+Teachers’+Strikes+Have+Had+No+Negative+Impacts+on+Academic+Performance

=By Dr. Harris Zwerling= =PSEA Assistant Director of Research= = =

=Critics of Pennsylvania teacher strikes have claimed that strikes have an adverse impact on student achievement. However, they have produced no evidence to support this claim.= =In response to continued public discussion of the impact of teacher strikes, Dr. Harris Zwerling (Assistant Director of Research - PSEA) conducted a study of the potential academic effects of strikes, using Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) test scores from 2003-04 to 2006-07 and several different statistical models.= = Dr. Zwerling was unable to find any statistical relationship between the incidence of teacher strikes and their duration and district level student performance on 46 different PSSA tests. His study supports prior research in finding that Pennsylvania teacher strikes are not associated with negative academic outcomes, measured by district level PSSA test performance, attendance and graduation rates. = =Since the passage of Act 88 in 1992 through 2006-07, 21.1 percent of Pennsylvania’s 603 School Districts, IUs, and Vocational Technical Schools have experienced teachers’ strikes. Only 3.6 percent have had more than one strike in that 15-year span. Seventy-seven percent (384) of Pennsylvania’s 500 operating school districts have not experienced a teachers’ strike during this 15-year span.= =From 1970 to 1992, there was an average of 27.6 teachers’ strikes annually. Since the passage of Act 88 (through 2006-07), there has been an average of 8.6 teachers’ strikes per year. The average duration of teachers’ strikes has not subsequently returned to the levels reached during the 1970s and 1980s. From 1970 to 1992, the average duration of teachers’ strikes was 15.4 days. Since then it has dropped to 12 days.= =During the last two school years, the number of teacher strikes increased to 13 each year. Prior to that, the number of strikes had reached double digits (10) only once in the last decade (2002-03).= =Dr. Zwerling examined PSSA scores, graduation rates and attendance data of school districts which have experienced teacher strikes between 1992-93 and 2006-07 and compared those districts to school districts which had not experienced strikes during the same period.= =He concluded, “This study supports prior research in finding that Pennsylvania teacher’s strikes are not associated with negative academic outcomes, measured here by district level PSSA test performance, attendance and graduation rates.”= =There are two other reasons one might expect that Pennsylvania teachers’ strikes would have no relationship to PSSA performance. First, the 12-day average duration of teachers’ strikes between 1992-93 and 2006-07 is little longer than the typical Christmas recess. Second, Pennsylvania’s Act 88 of 1992 requires that days lost to work stoppages must be made up so that schools must provide a minimum of 180 days of instruction.= =Strikes are difficult and unpleasant experiences, and will continue to be a last resort for our members when negotiations fail to reach a settlement. But Dr. Zwerling’s research debunks the claim that strikes have a negative impact on academic performance.=

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