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Melissa Arnold Lyon
Overcoming the Protestor’s Dilemma: How Teacher Strikes Demobilize Opponents
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceThe “Protestor’s Dilemma” refers to the paradox faced by protestors where their disruptive actions, while necessary to gain public attention and support, could potentially provoke backlash and weaken the very support they seek to gain. How can protestors overcome this dilemma? Teacher strikes… more →
The Causes and Consequences of U.S. Teacher Strikes
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceThe U.S. has witnessed a resurgence of labor activism, with teachers at the forefront. We examine how teacher strikes affect compensation, working conditions, and productivity with an original dataset of 772 teacher strikes generating 48 million student days idle between 2007 and 2023. Using an… more →
The Rise and Fall of the Teaching Profession: Prestige, Interest, Preparation, and Satisfaction over the Last Half Century
We examine the state of the U.S. K-12 teaching profession over the last half century by compiling nationally representative time-series data on four interrelated constructs: occupational prestige, interest among students, the number of individuals preparing for entry, and on-the-job satisfaction… more →
How State Takeovers of School Districts Affect Education Finance, 1990 to 2019
Tags: School districts, School reformState takeover of school districts—a form of political centralization that shifts decision-making power from locally elected leaders to the state—has increased in recent years, often with the purported goal of improving district financial condition. Takeover has affected millions of students… more →
Elevating Education in Politics: How Teacher Strikes Shape Congressional Election Campaigns
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceTags:Teacher strikes have gained national attention with the “#RedforEd” movement. Such strikes are polarizing events that could serve to elevate education as a political priority or cast education politics in a negative light. We investigate this empirically by collecting original panel data on U.S… more →
Design Philanthropy: Challenges and Opportunities in the Evolution of Philanthropic Giving
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceTags: PhilanthropyPhilanthropic investment in education has evolved considerably over the past several decades. This paper provides early evidence of another distinct adaptation, which we dub design philanthropy. In contrast to the macro-level structural reforms recently supported by large foundations,… more →
Sustaining a Sense of Success: The Protective Role of Teacher Working Conditions During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentCOVID-19 shuttered schools across the United States, upending traditional approaches to education. We examine teachers’ experiences during emergency remote teaching in the spring of 2020 using responses to a working conditions survey from a sample of 7,841 teachers across 206 schools and 9… more →
Heroes, Villains, or Something In Between? How “Right to Work” Policies Affect Teachers, Students, and Education Policymaking
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceAlthough the Janus v. AFCSME (2018) decision fundamentally changed the institutional context for U.S. teachers’ unions by placing all public school teachers in a “Right to Work” (RTW) framework, little research exists to conceptualize the effects of such policies that hinder… more →