Keeping an eye on the clock: the role of timing and teacher hiring in the education

ABSTRACT

Despite the importance of hiring high quality teachers, less attention has been given to districts’ hiring practices, particularly in terms of the timing of hiring. To date, decisions regarding when and for how long to post job vacancies have been largely subjective and anecdotal. This paper examines the relationship between the time and duration of vacancy posting alongside the quality of teacher candidates that apply for these roles and those that are hired. Notably, although the paper describes a dip in teacher quality late in the hiring season, I find evidence that many exceptional candidates can be found on the job market at this time. The findings from this study provide important implications for the literature and practice regarding teacher hiring.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher quality
• teacher hiring
• timing of posting
• hiring practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The selection of March as a cut-off was partially empirical and partially arbitrary. I ran the analysis using the whole information (from January to December) and found trends that reflect the statistical and substantive narrative that is presented later in the paper.

2. The Educators Professional Inventory (EPI) assesses candidate knowledge based on four main components, namely, teaching skills, qualifications, attitudinal factors and cognitive ability, and was developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association. Independent but unpublished research from Education Analytics found the EPI to be predictive of teacher value-added, higher-order teaching practices and teacher retention.

3. I have recoded the main predictor WINDOW variable into different values and re-run the analysis for a robustness check. Instead of a binary variable using one month as a cut-off, I have created a variable based on months (0 = less than 31 days; 1 = 32 ~ 60 days; 2 = 61 ~ 91 days; 3 = 92 days and more) and weeks (0 = less than one week; 1 = 8 ~ 14; 2 = 15 ~ 21; 3 = 22 ~ 38; 4 = 29 ~ 35; 5 = 36 or more days) and found a narrative and probability that is similar to the main finding of this study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Se Woong Lee

Se Woong Lee is an assistant professor of education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at University of Missouri at Columbia. His research focuses on educator quality, educator evaluation, and the educator labour market, with an emphasis on social inequality.