Strength From Within? Internal Recruitment and Principal Retention

• In Event: 77.018 - The Role of Leadership in Supporting Teachers and Improving Climate

Abstract

A common practice to help reduce the risk of principal turnover in the most hard-to-staff schools is to promote hiring from within the school or district. While there is much literature on the benefits and drawbacks of internal promotion, it is still unknown whether internal promotion fulfills its promises of stable leadership. To help bridge this gap, this study employs data from the Texas Education Agency that tracks the promotion and hiring of every certified principal over a 17-year period. Controlling for a host of background features, results of discrete time hazard models show that principals promoted from within either a school or district have the lowest are significantly less likely to turnover, switch schools, or exit the profession.

Authors

• Andrew Pendola, Auburn University

• Ed Fuller, The Pennsylvania State University