TY  - JOUR
AB  - 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. teacher strikes, which we link to congressional election campaign advertisements. Election ads provide a useful window into political discourse because they are costly to sponsors, consequential for voter behavior, and predictive of future legislative agendas. Using a differences-in-differences framework, we find that teacher strikes dramatically increase education issue salience, with impacts concentrated among positively-framed ads. Effects are driven by strikes lasting only a few days and occurring in battleground areas with highly-contested elections.
AU  - Lyon, Melissa Arnold 
AU  - Kraft, Matthew A. 
PY  - 2021
ST  - Elevating Education in Politics: How Teacher Strikes Shape Congressional Election Campaigns
T2  - EdWorkingPapers.com
TI  - Elevating Education in Politics: How Teacher Strikes Shape Congressional Election Campaigns
UR  - http://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai21-482
ER  -