Teacher Involvement in Hiring: Changes Over Time

• In Event: Examining Sources of Influence in Teacher Hiring: Race, Student Teaching, and Teacher Involvement

Abstract

Objectives
Recent research has found that organizational management activities, including teaching hiring, may be one of the key means through which school leaders can influence student achievement (Horng, Klasik, & Loeb, 2010) and that principals’ influence over teacher hiring has increased over time (Engel, Cannata, & Curran, 2015). It is unclear, however, if the decentralization in hiring from the district to the school has led to increased involvement of teachers in the hiring process.
This paper answers the following research questions:
1. Have teachers become more involved in hiring over time?
2. How do district, school, and teacher characteristics—such as union agreements, urbanicity, school level, and principal and teacher experience —explain teacher influence in teacher hiring?

Perspective
There is a growing body of research on how schools and districts decide whom to hire (e.g., Cannata & Engel, 2012; Engel, 2013; Engel, Cannata, & Curran, 2015; Harris, et al., 2010). This research has focused primarily on understanding principals’ preferences, assuming that principals have primary influence over these decisions. The role of teachers in the teacher hiring process remains largely unexplored. One recent study suggests wide variation within a single district in the extent to which principals involved their teachers in the hiring process (Engel & Finch, 2015). However, including teachers has the potential to benefits schools in at least two ways. First, given the importance of fit in hiring (Harris et al., 2010; Liu & Johnson, 2006), involving teachers in the hiring process can provide more information for both schools and prospective teachers regarding fit. Second, teacher collaboration and involvement in decision-making can benefit the school, leading to greater student achievement and reduced teacher turnover (Ingersoll, 2001; Ronfeldt, Owens Farmer, McQueen, & Grissom, 2015).

Data/Methods
We use the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), a nationally representative sample of school principals and teachers. For this study, we use data from all seven iterations of the SASS; specifically 1987-88, 1990-91, 1993-94, 1999-2000, 2003-04, 2007-08, and 2011-12. These data allow us to explore national trends in the centralization of teacher hiring over the past 25 years. Teacher ratings of their own influence over hiring and principal ratings of teachers’ influence over hiring are the key dependent variables of interest in this study.

Results
Table 1 shows an increase in principal-reported teacher influence over teacher hiring since 1987-88. Table 2 indicates that the increase in principal reported teacher influence over hiring holds when controlling for school, principal, and district characteristics. Further, principals of urban schools report that teachers in urban schools have more influence in teacher hiring, than their suburban and rural counterparts.
In additional analyses, we will explore the influence of teacher characteristics on teachers’ perceptions of their influence.

Significance
The increase in teacher influence in hiring suggests substantial decentralization with regard to key organizational decisions in schools. Thus, as principals have become key decision-makers around human capital for their schools, teachers have also gained influence in these decisions.

Authors

• Marisa A. Cannata, Vanderbilt University

• Mimi Engel, Vanderbilt University