In addition to the Leadership Database described above, the third study in this dissertation employs data self-obtained data r

1. Introduction

Schools across the nation are searching for ways to improve student performance. Rightfully, much has been written on the important role that teachers play in this process. We know relatively less about the role of principals in altering student outcomes. The principal’s position has evolved so that in addition to being a leader in curriculum and instruction, the principal often is responsible for managing the human, physical and financial resources of the building, representing the school to the public with respect to a variety of issues including assessment and accountability, and representing the interests of the school within the district. So, effective principals have the potential to affect student outcomes through a variety of paths. Arguably, the hiring of new teachers has the potential to affect student outcomes as much as any decision made within a school system. What are the teacher hiring practices of schools and what role do principals play in this decision? This paper provides information on these issues by addressing the following questions.

· What are the teacher hiring practices employed by public schools in New York State? How do these practices vary by the type of school or principal?

· How do the qualifications of teachers hired vary by the hiring practices employed and the attributes of principals?

A better understanding of these issues may provide insights to the improvement of student outcomes.

2. Background

Much of the research on school effectiveness argues that strong principal leadership is related to better student performance.[1] For example, Zigarelli (1996) examines five prominent literature reviews[2] on effective schools and finds that the effective school variables identified in these reviews collapse into six constructs; three of these constructs are related to the principal: principal leadership and involvement; employment of teachers, and school culture. In addition, Zigarelli (1996) uses a regression analysis to test the independent effect of each of these six constructs on student achievement levels. The results show that principal autonomy in hiring and firing decisions, school culture, and high teacher morale are the three most important factors.

Other research indicates that principals are not able affect change in student performance measures.[3] These apparent contradictions give rise to more questions than answers. The best explanations for these apparent contradictions involve methodological issues. For example, much of the earlier research employs data with small samples of very select populations. In addition, establishing an operational definition of an effective principal is problematic.[4] This is due, in large part, to the multifaceted role of the principal. Previous studies show that different perspectives, for example that of school board members, parents, teachers, students, and principals themselves, lead to very different conceptualizations of what makes an effective principal.[5] Other studies show that the leadership skills required to be an effective principal can vary greatly depending on the system and community in which the principal must function.[6] Moreover, this issue of context can interact with the issue of perspective to complicate matters further.[7]

Leithwood, Jantzi, and Steinbach (1999) describe six different approaches to school leadership: instructional leadership, transformational leadership, moral leadership, participative leadership, managerial leadership, and contingent leadership. Each of these approaches vary with regard to its focus: instructional leadership focuses on the leader’s attention to actions of teachers in so far as they directly relate to the education of students; transformational leadership focuses on the leader’s charismatic, visionary, cultural, and empowering abilities and her attention to the commitments and capacities of staff members; moral leadership focuses on the leader’s values, participative leadership focuses on decision-making as a group dynamic, managerial leadership focuses the leader’s attention on the functions and tasks at hand (this would include transactional leadership); and contingent leadership focuses on the leader’s ability to respond to a wide array of unique circumstances. Each of these approaches has some supporting evidence of its usefulness and/or relevance in the study of school leadership behavior. Depending on the author, each these approaches has considerable variation within an approach. In the end, we are left with a very long list of possible approaches to effective leadership.

Thus, the application of the model that best fits the context in which the leadership will take place becomes crucial. This context will include a plethora of important considerations including, but not limited to, individual characteristics of the leader and sub-ordinates, characteristics of the students and parents, characteristics of other leadership within the school and district, organizational culture and its imposed restrictions, and the main problems facing the school at a particular time. Even when the analysis is limited to only newly hired principals, there are two basic views of the transition to the new principal (Hart, 1993): one focuses on the school and district effects on the new principal (Duke, 1987; Hart, 1988; Ogawa, 1991) and the other focuses on the new principal’s effect on the school (Miskel and Cosgrove, 1985).

Yet again, the literature shows great diversity in the instruments used to assess effective principals. The methods include case studies, questionnaires, interviews, rating scales, and correlation design. They vary in scope ranging from a focus on one particular aspect of the principal’s role e.g., instructional leadership, to a broad, more general view of leadership.

Bossert et al. (1982) develops a framework to test for a causal relationship between a principal and student outcomes; the model divides this relationship into two sections: the effects of individual and organizational characteristics on principal behavior and the effect of principal behavior on student outcomes. By the authors’ own admission, the model is filled with methodological obstacles.

Since the development of this model in 1982, researchers have tried to test its usefulness in empirical settings.[8] More recently, research in the area of leader succession uses changeover in leadership positions to isolate the impact of leadership behavior on organizational outcomes[9]. While these studies make significant advancement beyond the anecdotal evidence provided by earlier case studies, data constraints still impede full specification of the models. As a result, answers to questions regarding the impact of leader behavior on outcomes remain ambiguous.

Based on this review of relevant research, we explore three aspects of the role of principals in teacher hiring:

· The process and structure teacher hiring,

· The attributes and qualifications sought in teachers, and

· The ways in which the qualifications of teachers varies with respect to attributes of the hiring process and the attributes of principals.

3. Data and Methods

This study employs data collected from a survey of New York State principals inquiring about the hiring practices of public school teachers. The survey instrument is based on the review of the literature with particular attention paid to the results of an analysis by Strauss (2000) and field-testing of the draft instrument. The survey instrument consists of 102 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions (see Appendix D).

The sample consisted of 1208 schools, which varied by region, urbanicity, and grade level[10]. The initial mailing was done early in January 2002; a follow-up reminder post card was sent in early February. Overall, there were 254 respondents; the response rate outside New York City (NYC) was 27 percent and the response rate within NYC was only 8 percent. Ultimately, hiring teachers is seen as phenomenon that occurs within a labor market; NYC, including its suburbs and Yonkers, is viewed as a likely labor market for hiring teachers. Due to low response rates for New York City, responses from New York City and its suburbs are eliminated from the following analysis.

In an effort to identify any meaningful response bias, differences between various individual and school attributes of survey respondents were compared to those of non-respondents; each of the resulting differences were small and statistically insignificant at the p=0.10 level (Table C-3).

We employ the principal survey to describe the process that schools use in hiring principals. The survey results are merged with other data on the attributes of the schools and principals contained in an administrative database. The administrative database includes information on the attributes of the students, teachers and principals in each school. A summary of that information is contained in Appendix B. Our intent here is descriptive. Ultimately, we want to examine behavioral relationships that assess the role of the principal in the teacher hiring process. However, too little is known about this process to begin building behavioral models. This analysis proceeds in two phases. First, a descriptive analysis of the practices used by schools to hire teachers is provided. Particular attention is paid to differences across urbanicity, student performance, grade level, and number of enrolled students. The second phase of the research uses descriptive analysis to examine the ways in which the qualifications of teachers actually hired (based on personnel records in the administrative database) vary across attributes of the principals hiring them (e.g., gender, ranking of institution granting bachelor degree and experience as a principal). A factor analysis is used to produce a single metric measure for teacher qualifications from four separate measures: not certified in any classes taught, failed the General Knowledge Exam or the LAST Exam (or both), first-time teacher, and Barron’s ranking of the college from which one earned a bachelor’s degree. This measure of teacher qualifications is employed to examine relationships between teacher qualifications and principal attributes.

4. Teacher Hiring Practices

How do schools structure the teacher hiring process and what practices are employed when hiring teachers? The results of the survey of principals described below often confirm anecdotal reports, both in the general responses and in the differences in structure and process across schools differentiated with respect to urbanicity, student performance, grade level and student enrollment. We first describe our findings with respect to the control that principals have in the teacher hiring process. Then we examine the practices employed by schools to hire teachers, followed by the content of candidate interviews. Finally, we describe the attributes that principals desire in new teachers and their views of factors that limit their ability to hire teachers.

Principal Autonomy

As expected, principals are heavily involved in the hiring of teachers, but principals of urban schools believe they have, on average, less autonomy than their suburban and rural counterparts. This was true for each of the five different aspects of autonomy examined (Table 1a). In general, about half of the principals report that they have primary responsibility for teacher hiring and over 70 percent indicate that they decide who moves on to later stages in the process. However, only 30 percent of urban principals indicate that they have primary responsibility for hiring and 38 percent report choosing which applicants move on to latter stages in the process. In addition, over 70 percent indicate that they must accept teachers from other schools in their district to fill vacancies, while this is true for only 41 percent of suburban principals and 21 percent of rural principals. These differences are somewhat more striking when compared by the level of student performance of the school as measured by the proportion of students scoring at level 1 in the fourth and eight grade English Language Arts exam.[11] Nineteen percent of the principals in lowest performing schools report that they have primary responsibility for hiring compared to over well 50 percent in the higher performing schools.

Results delineated by grade level of the school and enrollments are shown in Table 1b. While some differences exist, most of these are not statistically significant.

Even though it is not surprising that principals in urban and low-performing schools have less autonomy in teacher hiring than do other principals, it is nonetheless an important finding. In an environment where principals and schools are being held accountable for the performance of students, it is problematic holding principals accountable when they do not have substantial control and involvement in the process by which teachers are hired.

Hiring Practices

The process of hiring teachers varies widely across schools with respect to recruitment, selection, and hiring. Again, we examine how each of these aspects of the hiring process vary across schools grouped with respect to urbanicity, student performance, grade level and enrollment, as shown in Tables 2a and 2b.

Recruitment. Principals of urban schools report that they are much more likely to advertise outside the state for new teachers than suburban or rural teachers.[12] Over 70 percent of urban principals advertise for teachers out of state, while less than 25 percent of suburban principals do so. Most schools work with a college preparation program in the recruitment process, although this practice is somewhat more prevalent among suburban and rural schools than urban schools. Three-quarters of all schools work with a college preparation program. However, although 80 percent of the principals in rural schools report doing so, only 65 percent of urban principals indicate that they do. Similar differences hold when recruitment practices are examined by level of student performance. Only half of the lowest performing schools work with a teacher preparation program in the recruitment of teachers, while 80 percent of the highest performing schools do. Since our survey inquired about hiring practices in schools, we can not be sure whether districts have relationships with teacher preparation programs that are unreported by principals. It may be these district level relationships are more likely to go unreported in larger urban districts where it is more likely that human resource departments are the initial contact for hiring. That said, the finding described above suggests that partnerships with preparation programs may be an effective strategy to improve hiring in urban and low-performing schools.

Selection. The process of selecting candidates appears to be similar across schools. Most schools have candidates perform a mock teaching exercise and return for a second interview, although less than half report that candidates write an essay during their first interview (Table 2a). Although urban principals report that first interviews were shorter than what was reported by suburban and rural principals (30 minutes versus about 40 minutes), there are few significant differences with respect to whether applicants write essays or perform a mock teaching exercise. In addition, suburban and rural schools are more likely to invite candidates for second interview than are urban schools (about 90 percent versus 70 percent). Personnel hiring is often an involved process that can involve many participants and several stages. Thus, our results are suggestive that urban principals appear to devote less effort to a couple of aspects of the hiring is process, but more in depth analysis would be required to draw conclusions. When examined by student performance there are virtually no differences in the process by which principals report selecting candidates (Table 2a). Neither are there differences when schools are aggregated by grade level or enrollment size.

In general there is remarkable consistency across the topics that principals report being discussed during first interviews with teachers (Tables 3a and 3b). Urban principals are somewhat less likely to discuss group interactions and career goals with teachers than their suburban and rural counterparts. However, they report being somewhat more likely to discuss issues of diversity.

Hiring. The hiring process, as reported by principals, reflects commonly understood attributes of teacher labor markets. For example, nearly half of urban principals indicate that some hires are made after July 31^st, while less than 10 percent of suburban and rural principals report late hiring (Table 2a). Urban principals report that new hires are given more credit for prior teaching experience than is the case in suburban and rural schools. On average, urban principals provide three-quarters of a year credit for each year of prior experience, while suburban schools provide slightly over a half-year credit for each year of experience.

In addition, urban principals are much more likely to report that some job candidates turned down offers than suburban principals (50 percent versus 16 percent). Interestingly, less than half of the principals reported that salary is a limitation in hiring. Urban and rural principals were more likely to do so than suburban principals, although the differences are relatively small (49 percent versus 34 percent). However, urban principals are much more likely to indicate that the socioeconomic status of their students limits their ability to hire teachers than are suburban or rural principals (64 percent versus 11 and 28 percent respectively). Thus, principals perceive that this aspect of working conditions is an important limitation on their ability to hire teachers.

Attributes Sought for in New Teachers

What are the criteria on which candidates are judged and how do these criteria vary across schools? As might be expected, past teaching performance, bachelor’s degree major in teaching area, and references are the criteria most often cited as being important to principals in evaluating prospective teachers. More than two-thirds of all respondents listed these three criteria as being either important or extremely important in determining which candidates to interview (Tables 5a through 5c).[13] Identified somewhat less often were prior experience, the candidate’s grade-point average (GPA) in their major area and their level of certification (e.g., provisional or permanent). Interestingly, urban principals placed less emphasis on GPA in major than did suburban or rural principals (Tables 5a through 5c). However, urban principals listed past or present school district residency as an important criteria much more frequently than suburban or rural principals. Forty-four percent of urban principals listed district residency as either extremely important or important. In contrast, suburban and rural principals identified it as such 11 and 8 percent of the time, respectively. These differences may reflect district requirements but nonetheless are an important indication of criteria used to judge applicants. Although commonly employed, principals rely less heavily on the quality of the undergraduate institution, GPA in major, essays, certification test scores, or portfolios in judging candidates.

Not only is there variation across urbanicity, there is also variation within each of the urbanicity categories (Tables 5a through 5c). For example, within urban schools, none of the five Lykert ranking categories (not important to extremely important) contained more than 45 percent of principals’ responses. Moreover, for most of the individual indicators, each of the five categorical rankings contained at least ten percent of the principals’ responses. Results were similar, albeit a bit less dramatic, within the suburban and rural schools. This indicates that different principals frequently employ different criteria in evaluating candidates.

Finally, a factor analysis of the level of importance of the 13 indicators used to generate an initial interview indicate that these group into four factors (Table 6). Three factors are suggestive of measures of ability and/or performance; each of these three factors differs with regard to its level of specificity with respect to teaching ability and/or performance. Loading on one factor, the least specific ability/performance factor, there are two measures: overall GPA and GPA within major. There are three measures on a second factor, a more specific ability/performance factor: essays, test scores, and portfolios.

There are also three measures on a third factor, the most specific ability/performance factor. Two of these measures are past performance in teaching and references, clearly very specific measures of a teacher’s ability/performance as a teacher. At the same time, another measure, whether or not the individual is a resident of the school district loads on this factor. This measure, and only this measure, has a negative factor score on its dominant factor.[14] It may be that some schools/districts believe that being a resident of the district is an important indictor of success as a teacher within the school/district and that they are willing to accept candidates with lower qualifications on other measures to obtain candidates who are district residents. Once again, more research is needed to better address these issues.

The fourth factor appears to represents qualifications more so than ability and/or performance. The measures loading on this factor include experience, level of certification, advanced degrees, and bachelor degree in teaching.

5. Conclusions and Implications

Although principals may not directly affect the student outcomes, they have the potential to importantly shape the environment in which students learn. An important aspect of the learning environment is the quality of the teaching workforce. Increasingly, research is documenting that teachers have an important impact on student learning. Good teachers can improve student outcomes much more than weaker teachers. Ultimately, we are interested to know whether some principals are better at hiring teachers than others. We approach addressing this question by examining how principals structure the hiring process:

· How is the teacher hiring process structured?

o What control do principals have with respect to teacher hiring?

o How do recruitment, selection and hiring vary across schools?

o What attributes do principals seek in prospective teachers?

· Are some principals able to hire more qualified teachers than other principals? If so, is there a relationship to the nature of the hiring process or the attributes of the principal?

We find that:

Principals of urban and low-performing schools have less autonomy than do their suburban and rural counterparts;

The socio-economic status of students in urban and low-performing schools presents is reported to provide a greater obstacle to hiring teachers than compensation;

There is great variation in the level of importance of various attributes/qualifications of prospective teachers within urbanicity categories;

These results add to the mounting evidence that suggests urban and low-performing schools are disadvantaged with respect to their ability to attract and retain highly qualified teachers. However, important questions still remain. For example, are urban and low-performing schools advantaged by the lack of autonomy in hiring of teachers? Should they have more control over this process? It should be noted that these findings reflect the views of principals themselves. If we were to survey other professional staff, e.g., teacher or superintendents the responses may well differ.

Additional research, perhaps in the form of case studies, could provide valuable information with regard to these questions and others. In addition, case studies could help provide an understanding of why hiring practices are related to school characteristics/attributes far more than principal characteristics/attributes. It may be that changing hiring practices upon the arrival of a different principal is not warranted given the rather short average length of a principal’s tenure and the time it would take to adjust to the new practices. However, without further research, answers to these questions will remain unknown.

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*Principal Autonomy by Urbanicity and School Performance for Non-NYC Area Schools (Means)*