The Effect of School Turnaround on Teacher Vacancies

• In Event: The Intersection of K-12 School Accountability and Human Capital

Abstract

School turnaround is designed to rapidly improve student outcomes by providing additional resources, reforming policies/practices, and improving teacher quality. However, the stigma associated with the turnaround designation and the resulting disruption can have unintended consequences on teachers. The Every Student Succeeds Act requires that states intervene to turnaround the lowest preforming schools (i.e., Comprehensive Support and Improvement, CSI). An essential component of successful turnaround is improving teacher quality. The CSI designation may influence teacher quality through several channels. CSI schools must implement an improvement plan that could include Professional Development for teachers. CSI schools also receive additional funding they can use to retain high quality teachers. Finally, the stigma associated with the CSI designation can lead teachers to leave their current positions. Prior research has found that school turnaround increases teacher turnover, but no known prior study has examined how school turnaround effects teacher vacancies. Turnover may or may not harm overall quality depending on the strength of the exiting and replacement teachers. However, vacancies are harmful to overall teacher quality and threaten any potential school improvement.

I ask: What is the effect of the CSI designation on teacher vacancies? Do changes in expenditures, staff, and school climate explain the relationship between the CSI designation on teacher vacancies?

I use school level report card data from South Carolina second CSI cohort (2021-22 to 2023-24). The data include the index used to assign schools to the CSI designation and information about the count of vacant teaching positions. Data also include detailed information about staff (e.g., retention, counts), academic achievement, and school climate. I merge in school spending data and school characteristics.

I estimate the effect of CSI on teacher vacancies using a Sharp Regression Discontinuity (RD). Robustness checks suggest there is (1) no manipulation at the forcing variable, (2) compliance with treatment assignment in the first year of treatment is perfect and attrition in subsequent years is rare, (3) the relationship between the outcome and the forcing variable is smooth at the cutoff score, and (4) results are robust to alternative bandwidths and polynomials.

On average CSI causes schools to have about 2.3 more teacher vacancies from 2021-22 to 2023-24 than similar non-CSI schools. In the first year of the improvement cycle (2021-22) CSI schools have about 1.5 more teacher vacancies, which doubles to about 3 more vacancies in the third year (2023-24). The CSI designation increases personnel spending overall but increases the number of out-of-field teachers and decreases the number of support staff and instructional aides. This suggests that the disruption from CSI creates inhospitable working conditions, which creates a barrier to filling teaching vacancies.

Author

• Joshua F Bleiberg, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author