Stacey A. Rutledge

Mix and Match: What Principals Really Look for When Hiring Teachers

The vast majority of research and policy related to teacher quality focuses on the supply of teachers and ignores teacher demand. In particular, the important role of school principals in hiring teachers is rarely considered. Using interviews of school principals in a midsized Florida school district, we provide an exploratory mixed methods analysis of the teacher characteristics principals prefer. Our findings contradict the conventional wisdom that principals undervalue content knowledge and intelligence. Principals in our study ranked content knowledge third among a list of twelve characteristics. Intelligence does appear less important at first glance, but this is apparently because principals believe all applicants who meet certification requirements meet a minimum threshold on intelligence and because some intelligent teachers have difficulty connecting with students. More generally, we find that principals prefer an individual mix of personal and professional qualities. They also create an organizational mix, hiring teachers who differ from those already in the school in terms of race, gender, experience, and skills, and an organizational match, in which teachers have similar work habits and a high propensity to remain with the school over time. Because of tenure rules, many principals also prefer less experienced (untenured) teachers, even though research suggests that they are less effective.

How Principals "Bridge and Buffer" the New Demands of Teacher Quality and Accountability: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Teacher Hiring

In this mixed‐methods study, we examine the degree to which district‐ and building‐level administrators accommodate teacher‐quality and test‐based accountability policies in their hiring practices. We find that administrators negotiated local hiring goals with characteristics emphasized by federal and state teacher‐quality policies, such as knowledge of the subject and teaching skills. While district administrators and principals largely “bridged” to external certification requirements, some principals “buffered” their hiring decisions from the pressures of test‐based accountability. Principals who bridged to test‐based accountability gave greater weight to subject knowledge and teaching skills. We find that bridging and buffering differs by policy and cannot be easily applied to accountability policies. Specifically, separating the indirect effect of external accountability from other policies influencing principal hiring is difficult. Our analysis also highlights tensions among local, state, and federal policies regarding teacher quality and the potential of accountability to permeate noninstructional school decision making.

How Teacher Evaluation Methods Matter for Accountability A Comparative Analysis of Teacher Effectiveness Ratings by Principals and Teacher Value-Added Measures

Policymakers are revolutionizing teacher evaluation by attaching greater stakes to student test scores and observation-based teacher effectiveness measures, but relatively little is known about why they often differ so much. Quantitative analysis of thirty schools suggests that teacher value-added measures and informal principal evaluations are positively, but weakly, correlated. Qualitative analysis suggests that some principals give high value-added teachers low ratings because the teachers exert too little effort and are “lone wolves” who work in isolation and contribute little to the school community. The results suggest that the method of evaluation may not only affect which specific teachers are rewarded in the short term, but shape the qualities of teacher and teaching students experience in the long term.

Certify, Blink, Hire: An Examination of the Process and Tools of Teacher Screening and Selection

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 present findings from a study of school principals and district administrators in a midsized Florida school district. Our results suggest that the screening and selection process in teaching is not much different from occupations that have similar levels of job complexity. A theory emerges from the review and analysis that explains the process and reliance on certain tools in teacher hiring. The theory focuses especially on the costs of various tools and processes, the types and quality of information that come from them, and the distinctive features of teaching as an occupation and schools as organizations.

Understanding Effective High Schools Evidence for Personalization for Academic and Social Emotional Learning

This article presents findings from a year-long multilevel comparative case study exploring the characteristics of effective urban high schools. We developed a comprehensive framework from the school effectiveness research that guided our data collection and analysis at the four high schools. Using value-added methodology, we identified two higher and two lower performing high schools in Broward County, Florida. We found that the two higher performing high schools in the study had strong and deliberate structures, programs, and practices that attended to both students’ academic and social learning needs, something we call Personalization for Academic and Social Emotional Learning. Because of the study’s inductive focus on effectiveness, we follow our findings with a discussion of theories and prior research that substantiate the importance of schools’ attention to the connection between students’ academic and social emotional learning needs in high schools.

The Challenge of Improving Instruction in Urban High Schools: Case Studies of the Implementation of the Chicago Academic Standards.

We are grateful to the Field-Initiated Studies Education Research Grant Program at the U.S. Department of Education and the Research on School Reform Initiative at the Spencer Foundation. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the authors and not of the U.S. Department of Education or the Spencer Foundation. Research assistance was provided by Jenifer Blaxall, Sophia Hughes, Valerie Moyer, Simrit Dhesi, and Sarah Graff. Requests for reprints should be sent to Kenneth K. Wong, Professor of Public Policy and Education, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, 230 Appleton Place, Peabody 514, Nashville, TN 37203-5701. E-mail: ken.wong@vanderbilt.edu

State Education Agencies, Information Systems, and the Expansion of State Power in the Era of Test-Based Accountability

This article examines how SEAs in three states designed, installed, and operated statewide, longitudinal student information systems (SLSIS). SLSIS track individual students’ progress in K-12 schools, college, and beyond and link it to individual schools and teachers. They are key components of the information infrastructure of test-based accountability. Drawing on science and technology studies, this study documents the strategies SEAs use to assemble and coordinate the vast amounts of technology and people across and beyond the educational system needed to collect, process, and disseminate test-based accountability data through SLSIS. We find that while SLSIS expand state power through what we refer to as informatic power, SEA control over these systems and the data they produce depends on whether SEA staff can manage the competing interests of federal, state, district, and external actors. SLSIS are thus sites of the ongoing contestation of state power within and beyond the educational system.

Identifying and Understanding Effective High School Practices.

The authors report on a yearlong investigation into similar schools that performed well and less well in the same district. They found that the higher-performing schools engaged in an intentional set of systemic practices that encourage Personalization for Academic and Social Learning (PASL) in one district and integrated structures of academic press and support that scaffolded the development of Student Ownership and Responsibility (SOAR) in another.

Selecting the "Best Applicant(s)" with Limited Options and Policy Constraints.

This case study examines issues related to teacher hiring and accountability policies, including the adequate yearly progress and highly qualified teacher provisions of the No Child Left Behind act. The focus of the case study is the nexus among findings from the teacher-quality research, realities of teacher labor markets, and accountability policies. Opportunities for discussion of leadership decisions at the school and district levels are provided. The details described in this case study are developed for use in personnel/instructional supervision courses.

Avoiding Drama: Student and Teacher Positioning within a School's Social Media Ecosystem

This paper presents findings from a study of high school student and teacher use of social media within the school context, focusing on the role that drama plays in their descriptions of personal and peer social media use. Findings suggest that most individuals feel social media drama has a constant presence in the high school context, but they also carefully position drama as an act that others engage in, rejecting the notion that they might be perpetrators of drama themselves.