Hiring Teachers in New York's Public Schools: Can the Principal Make a Difference?

Abstract

An analysis of survey data is used to examine the practices used to hire teachers, the level of principal autonomy within the process, the attributes sought in teachers, and to compare each based upon the characteristics of schools and of principals. Findings indicate that urban and low-performing schools (and the principals of these schools) are disadvantaged with respect to their ability to recruit and to hire highly qualified teachers and that, in general, principal autonomy in hiring teachers, teacher hiring practices, the attributes sought in teachers, and the constraints and limitations within the teacher hiring process are largely determined by the organizational structure, culture, and situational context of a school In addition, a causal model is used to examine the extent to which newly hired principals hire teachers with much better (or much worse) qualifications than the teachers hired by their predecessors and to examine the relationship between principal effectiveness, in this regard, and the traits of principals. Findings indicate that there is a remarkable consistency in principals' effectiveness (and ineffectiveness) in hiring teachers and that, for principals to be effective, their traits and attributes must be appropriately matched with the organizational structure, culture, and situational context of a school. That is, there is no systematic relationship between principal effectiveness and the traits and attributes of principals except for district experience, which has a positive and significant impact on principal effectiveness and which, on average, is likely to have a positive and significant impact on the matches between a principal and a school.