Recruiting and retaining effective teachers is critical to school turnaround. However, research on how improving educator quality in low-performing schools contributes to school improvement is largely situated in urban settings. This study examines staffing practices through a descriptive analysis of the first cohort of Comprehensive Support and…

We surveyed principals and assistant principals in 12 suburban and rural school districts in Kentucky in order to identify the underlying dimensions of the Preferred Teacher Applicant Characteristics Survey and to examine the relationships between school characteristics, administrator characteristics, and their preferences for teacher applicant…

This qualitative study reports on principals' perceptions regarding the teacher characteristics deemed most important for hiring effective teachers. Data for the study come from semi-structured interviews with principals working in urban public, Catholic, and Jewish schools. Results reveal a tendency among principals in all three sectors to focus…

Research examining the teacher hiring process is scant and has largely ignored the principal's role. This qualitative, comparative case study uses Person-Environment fit to explore teacher hiring in two high schools with divergent characteristics in the same district. Findings suggest that fit is a dynamic quality, depending on school context and…

Recent research has demonstrated that elementary school leaders, under pressure to meet benchmarks set by state and federal governments, have begun "staffing to the test," moving to tested grades and subjects teachers whose previous students made substantive learning gains. This is particularly true in lower-performing schools or schools…

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…

It is commonly assumed that urban school districts hire teachers late due to issues related to district size and/or restrictions in collectively bargained teacher contracts affecting teacher hiring and transfers between schools. Our investigation of late teacher hiring and collective bargaining is based on a survey of 40 school districts that…

While much has been written about the process of employee selection in other occupations, there has been little discussion on the process and tools of teacher selection and why it occurs as it does. To understand this question, we conduct an extensive literature review in which we compare teacher hiring with hiring in other occupations. We also…

An analysis of survey data is used to examine the practices used to hire teachers, the level of principal autonomy within the process, the attributes sought in teachers, and to compare each based upon the characteristics of schools and of principals. Findings indicate that urban and low-performing schools (and the principals of these schools) are…

This study examines the screening decisions of teachers as organizational representatives and varies the focal position sought by applicants (teacher or counselor), the location of the job assignment (proximal or distal), and academic performance of a school district. Credentials of hypothetical job candidates were evaluated according to…

A national random sample of senior high school principals evaluated the paper credentials of hypothetical teacher candidates varying both in national origin (Asian, Hispanic, or Native American) and in chronological age (control condition, 29 years old, or 49 years old) for a focal teacher position either in their building (proximal) or in their…