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

Douglas Harris, Stacey A. Rutledge (), William K. Ingle () and Cynthia C. Thompson ()
Additional contact information
Stacey A. Rutledge: Educational Leadership and Policy, College of Education, Florida State University
William K. Ingle: Leadership and Policy, Bowling Green State University
Cynthia C. Thompson: Educational Leadership and Policy, College of Education, Florida State University

Education Finance and Policy, 2010, vol. 5, issue 2, 228-246

Abstract: 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. © 2010 American Education Finance Association

Keywords: teacher hiring; teacher demand; teacher characteristics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I21 I22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/edfp.2010.5.2.5205 (application/pdf)
Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:5:y:2010:i:2:p:228-246

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://mitpressjour ... rnal/?issn=1557-3060

Access Statistics for this article

Education Finance and Policy is currently edited by Stephanie Riegg Cellini and Randall Reback

More articles in Education Finance and Policy from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().