Staffing the Classroom: How Urban Principals Find Teachers and Make Hiring Decisions

Abstract

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 their faculty and administrative staff when hiring, and whether and how these principal behaviors vary systematically by school level and by whether schools are higher or lower achieving. We find that principals in higher achieving schools network more to find candidates, whereas principals in lower achieving schools rely more on hiring resources provided by the district and frequently hire their own substitute and student teachers. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Notes

1. Nationally, 75 percent of public school principals report that they have a high degree of autonomy in the teacher hiring process. Authors’ calculation using 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey.

2. The initial sample included 32 schools. One principal refused to participate in the study.

3. Only schools with vacancies for the 2006–2007 academic year were included. Special education schools, alternative schools, and schools that had formed in the last year were excluded from the sample. In two high schools assistant principals were interviewed. In both cases, the assistant principals had primary responsibility for hiring teachers. In two schools, principals invited their assistant principals to join the interview.

4. We also explored variation in principals’ responses by principal experience, race/ethnicity, and gender. We did not find systematic differences by these principal characteristics.