Order Effects and Employment Decisions: Experimental Evidence from a Nationwide Program

In this paper, we show that order effects operate in the context of high-stakes, real-world decisions: employment choices. We experimentally evaluate a nationwide program in Ecuador that changed the order of teaching vacancies on a job application platform in order to reduce teacher sorting (that is, lower-income students are more likely to attend schools with less qualified teachers). In the treatment arm, the platform showed hard-to-staff schools (institutions typically located in more vulnerable areas that normally have greater difficulty attracting teachers) first, while in the control group teaching vacancies were displayed in alphabetical order. In both arms, hard-to-staff schools were labeled with an icon and identical information was given to teachers. We find that a teacher in the treatment arm was more likely to apply to hard-to-staff schools, to rank them as their highest priority, and to be assigned to a job vacancy in one of these schools. The effects were not driven by inattentive, altruistic, or less-qualified teachers. The program has thus helped to reduce the unequal distribution of qualified teachers across schools of different socioeconomic backgrounds.

Teachers’ Preferences for Proximity and the Implications for Staffing Schools: Evidence from Peru

This paper uses the 2015 Peruvian national teacher selection process to explore candidates’ rank-ordered preferences for public schools. We show that, in seeking a permanent position, candidates prefer schools that are closer to where they attended their Teacher Education Program (TEP) and that are located in urban areas. These preferences vary by candidates’ attributes: urban location seem to be particularly important for females and higher-performing candidates. Preferences for proximity to previous workplace are weaker for younger candidates and stronger for high performers. Candidates also prefer larger schools located in low-poverty districts, with one teacher per classroom (vs. non-single-teacher/multigrade), Spanish language instruction (vs. non-bilingual), and access to basic services. A greater understanding of which school characteristics are most valued by teachers can help to design effective policies for attracting candidates to hard-to-staff schools.

The schools teachers choose

One way to identify good schools is to look for the schools where teachers want to work. Jeremy Glazer interviewed teachers in one large urban school district who moved from hard-to-staff schools to some of the district’s most desirable schools, asking what motivated their moves and why the schools they sought out were attractive to them. These interviews offer three lessons that can help guide efforts to make more good schools for all our nation’s children.

Designing an Employee Experience Approach to Teacher Retention in Hard-to-Staff Schools

Many school employers struggle with teacher turnover challenges despite their use of wide-ranging teacher retention initiatives. Emphasizing a new Talent Centered Education Leadership approach, this article relies on a theory-building methodology that leverages the theories of career choice and Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene, empirical literature that examines the differentiated needs of teachers throughout the stages of their career, and modern strategic human resource management practices, to argue that school leaders should intentionally design a supportive employee experience for teacher support. Guidance is provided for the addressing of staffing issues in hard-to-staff secondary schools, accounting for the total employee experience journey from entry to retirement.

The Meritocratic Mystique and Mathematical Mediocrity in Hard-to-Staff Schools: A Critique of the Best and Brightest Teacher Agenda

This article presents a critique of a teacher quality agenda promoted by a network of elitiste organizations in the United States. Network leaders posit that gaps in teacher quality cause achievement gaps. Their solution is to incentivize the graduates of the nation’s most selective colleges to teach in hard-to-staff schools. Summarizing prior results from secondary mathematics, this article argues that selective college graduates do not make particularly effective teachers and, given their high rates of attrition, do more harm than good. It concludes with the recommendation to invest instead in the development of community teachers to teach core subjects like mathematics.

Rethinking Teacher Retention In Hard-To-Staff Schools

National, state, and local educational agencies identify teacher retention as an issue of continuous importance and concern. This report addresses the issue of teacher retention through the lens of administrative effectiveness and involvement, as well as teachers’ intrinsic motivations. Relevant findings include structural framing of the educational environment, student behaviors, school district demands for improvement, and teacher perspectives on administrative support. The report iterates that teacher retention does not have a one-size-fits-all solution, and that each school division and individual school must work purposefully to devise plans to retain its most effective teachers.

Increasing Teacher Efficacy Through Rural Partnerships

The rural teacher residency (RTR) program at California State University – Chico was a program funded by a Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) grant from 2010-2015. The RTR program prepared teachers through partnerships with four school districts in the rural region of northern California. This residency program was designed to provide targeted training and experience in co-teaching, action research, professional learning communities, and collaboration. In addition, RTR faculty hoped to impact the retention of teachers for hard-to-staff schools such as those with underserved students and/or in rural settings. The purpose of the chapter is to briefly overview the design features of the RTR program and to describe the qualitative data analysis of an evaluation of the program (i.e., focus groups, survey, observations/interviews) at the conclusion of the grant funding cycle.

Incentives, Teachers, and Gender at Work

Incentive pay programs have become panacea for a multitude of educational challenges. When aimed at teachers the assumption is that rewards entice them to work in particular ways or particular schools. However, the assumption is based on an economic formula that does not take into consideration the gendered nature of policy processes. This study examined ethnographically 10 teachers’ decision-making processes regarding whether to take up The Rural Program [La Ruralidad] in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, which rewarded qualified educators with bonus pay to work in hard-to-staff schools, to address the question: How does gender mediate teachers’ decision-making process to take up an incentive reward? I isolate three conditions: safety, transportation, and community, to show how gendered relations, identities, and roles incentivize teachers. I argue that masculinities and femininities mediated teachers’ approach to taking up incentives. Rather than a simplistic, one-time-only decision, the study shows an on-going policy process that involves women and men in “rational economic decision making” mired by gender.