Purpose: Over the past decade, policy researchers and advocates have called for the decentralization of teacher hiring decisions from district offices to school principals. The purpose of this paper is to document the trends across two and a half decades in principals' reported influence over teacher hiring decisions in the USA and explore how and…

A wide body of evidence indicates that there is a large inequality in the distribution of teachers across schools. Relatedly, recent research has revealed a number of important dimensions of teacher labor markets in the United States. We review the literature in two of these areas: the geography of teacher labor markets and the decision-making…

Despite the importance of teachers and the fact that teacher hiring is decentralized in most school districts, we know relatively little about the process through which individual principals hire faculty for their schools. Using interviews with 31 Chicago principals, we explore how principals find job candidates, whether they collaborate with…

Purpose: Relatively little is known about how principals make decisions about teacher hiring. This article uses mixed methods to examine what characteristics principals look for in teachers. Research Methods: Data were gathered using a mixed method approach, including in-depth interviews with a representative sample of 31 principals as well as an…

The academic success of any school depends on its teachers. However, relatively little research exists on the qualities principals value in teacher hiring, and we know almost nothing about charter school principals' preferences. This article addresses this gap in the literature using survey results for a matched sample of charter and traditional…

Recent evidence on the large variance in teacher effectiveness has spurred interest in teacher labor markets. Research documents that better qualified teachers typically work in more advantaged schools but cannot determine the relative importance of supply versus demand. To isolate teacher preferences, we document which schools prospective…

Background: Case studies suggest that late hiring timelines are common in large urban school districts and result in the loss of qualified teachers to surrounding suburbs. To date, however, there has been no large-scale quantitative investigation of the relationship between the timing of teacher hires and teacher qualifications. Purpose: This…

Interest in understanding how principals and school districts hire teachers has increased as empirical evidence on teacher effectiveness has grown. Case studies suggest late hiring timelines are pervasive in large urban school districts and result in the loss of more qualified teachers to surrounding suburbs. This paper uses labor market fixed…