Search results
1 – 10 of over 4000Sarah Guthery and Lauren P. Bailes
Hiring teachers is among principals' most critical work but what remains uncertain is the relationship between a principal's tenure in a school and the rate at which they hire…
Abstract
Purpose
Hiring teachers is among principals' most critical work but what remains uncertain is the relationship between a principal's tenure in a school and the rate at which they hire teachers who will stay. Teacher retention and principal experience are key predictors of school stability. This study therefore investigates the influence of principal tenure on the retention rates of teachers they hire over time.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors followed 11,717 Texas principals from 1999 to 2017, and tracked the teachers they hired in each year of their tenure in a school to see if principals became more effective at hiring teachers who stay over time. The authors use regression with fixed effects and find that the longer a principal stayed in a school, the more effective they were at hiring teachers who stay to both three- and five-year benchmarks.
Findings
Principals hire significantly more teachers who persist after they have led their first school for five or more years; however, the average principal in Texas leaves a school after four years thus never realizing those gains. The authors' second main finding indicates that principals who enter an unstable school (less than 69% retention in the two years prior to the principal's arrival) and stay at least five consecutive years, can counteract prior instability.
Originality/value
This study provides initial evidence that principals establish a great deal of building-specific situational expertise that is not easily portable or applicable in a subsequent school placement.
Details
Keywords
Mentoring can improve novice teacher effectiveness and reduce teacher attrition, yet the depth and breadth of mentoring can vary greatly within and between schools. The purpose of…
Abstract
Purpose
Mentoring can improve novice teacher effectiveness and reduce teacher attrition, yet the depth and breadth of mentoring can vary greatly within and between schools. The purpose of this paper is to identify the extent to which a school’s administrative context is associated with the focus and frequency of novice teacher-mentor interactions.
Design/methodology/approach
By estimating logistic regression models, the author identified the association between novices’ perceptions of their working conditions and the content and frequency of interactions with their formally assigned mentors.
Findings
When novice teachers perceived positive administrator-teacher relations in their schools and reported that administrative duties did not interfere with their core work as teachers, they were more likely to frequently interact with their mentors around issues of curriculum.
Research limitations/implications
Studies of new teacher induction need to more fully account for elements of school-level organizational context which influence novice teacher-mentor interactions, specifically related to administrative decision making and climate. Future research should seek to identify the extent to which formal policy related to new teacher induction is supported by broader elements of the organizational context.
Practical implications
In addition to implementing sound formal policies related to teacher mentoring, school administrators should seek to foster a school climate that promotes administrator-teacher and teacher-teacher collaboration to promote improved teacher mentoring.
Originality/value
This study builds upon previous research by drawing attention to the association between broad measures of school-level administrative context related to the quality of working conditions and teacher mentoring.
Details
Keywords
Saul A. Rubinstein and John E. McCarthy
Over the past decade the policy debate over improving U.S. public education has focused on market solutions (charter schools, privatization, and vouchers) and teacher evaluation…
Abstract
Over the past decade the policy debate over improving U.S. public education has focused on market solutions (charter schools, privatization, and vouchers) and teacher evaluation through high stakes standardized testing of students. In this debate, teachers and their unions are often characterized as the problem. Our research offers an alternate path in the debate, a perspective that looks at schools as systems – the way schools are organized and the way decisions are made. We focus on examples of collaboration through the creation of long-term labor-management partnerships among teachers’ unions and school administrators that improve and restructure public schools from the inside to enhance planning, decision-making, problem solving, and the ways teachers interact and schools are organized. We analyzed how these efforts were created and sustained in six public school districts over the past two decades, and what they can teach us about the impact of significant involvement of faculty and their local union leadership, working closely with district administration. We argue that collaboration between teachers, their unions, and administrators is both possible and necessary for any meaningful and lasting public school reform.
Details
Keywords
To examine the knowledge strategies of school administrators and teachers in schools to acquire and use information for decision making in various areas of school development.
Abstract
Purpose
To examine the knowledge strategies of school administrators and teachers in schools to acquire and use information for decision making in various areas of school development.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative correlational research design using survey questionnaire as the main instrument for data collection. The respondents were from 40 schools, and involved random selection of 282 school administrators and 500 teachers. The research was conducted using a 23 item questionnaire.
Findings
Personal knowledge strategies of school administrators and teachers are highly correlated to the perception of positive knowledge management environments in their schools (r = 0.57, p < 0.001); the quality of data kept within schools (r = 0.63 p < 0.001); and the extent decision making in schools was information‐driven. Personal strategies also tend to influence the knowledge culture within schools. Personal strategies can maneuver the way people seek and tolerate new knowledge, and how ideas are valued and used. Higher levels of personal knowledge strategies will also likely result in a stronger belief in the quality process of decision making in schools.
Research limitations/implications
The knowledge strategies is not an exhaustive list.
Practical implications
School leaders need to cultivate competent knowledge strategies amongst their staff members to consolidate the knowledge culture in schools.
Originality/value
This paper identifies the need to actively create a school environment that enables teachers to actively and intensively utilize the information to create new knowledge and enhance the knowledge and information culture in their schools.
Details
Keywords
Kamal Hamdan, Jill Aguilar, Patricia Yee, Andrea Nee, Xiomara Benitez, Cindy Medina and Jeff Sapp
According to the classic text by Haberman and Post (1998), teacher leaders in urban schools must possess many characteristics, including “relationship skills… empathy…” (p. 98)…
Abstract
According to the classic text by Haberman and Post (1998), teacher leaders in urban schools must possess many characteristics, including “relationship skills… empathy…” (p. 98), skills for “coping with violence,” a capacity for “self-analysis,” and the ability to function “in chaos” (p. 99), among others. Further, they state, the process of recruitment and selection of high-quality teachers who will become teacher leaders relies upon the ability of a teacher certification program to effectively identify “those predisposed” “to perform the sophisticated expectations” (p. 96) of urban teachers. Recruiting and selecting candidates who will be effective, over the long run, in challenging environments may in fact be the most consequential phase of the entire teacher preparation process. Traditional methods of recruitment and selection vary widely and are typically less strategic (Guarino, Santibañez, & Daley, 2006) than the model described by Haberman and Post (1998). This chapter describes the recruitment and selection process employed by three CSUDH alternative routes to certification that aim to place highly effective teachers in high-needs urban secondary schools.
R. Adam Manley and Richard Zinser
The purpose of this project was to create a contemporary taxonomy of Career and Technical Education (CTE) teacher competencies in order to evaluate and improve CTE teacher…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this project was to create a contemporary taxonomy of Career and Technical Education (CTE) teacher competencies in order to evaluate and improve CTE teacher education.
Design/methodology/approach
This study utilized a modified Delphi technique with a large sample of CTE experts – teachers, administrators, and teacher‐educators in the state of Michigan, USA to identify the competencies and their relative importance.
Findings
As a result, new competencies were added and a number of old competencies were deleted or changed. The product of this research is a matrix of 144 competencies in 13 categories, which also shows the level of importance and degree of consensus for each competency.
Research limitations/implications
The state plans to use the new competencies for a variety of purposes, however caution is advised for making conclusions and generalizations from the study for other applications.
Practical implications
Using the matrix as its infrastructure, CTE teacher‐education institutions can assess their curricula to determine where the competencies are addressed, and use it in the form of a follow‐up survey with recent graduates. CTE administrators might utilize the competencies for internal evaluation of new teachers and as a needs assessment for professional development.
Originality/value
Any effort to improve CTE teaching and teacher‐education, by researchers or policy‐makers, should begin with a consensus on the competencies required for successful teaching and learning.
Details
Keywords
W. James Jacob, Donald E. Morisky and Yusuf K. Nsubuga
This study examines attitudes of students, teachers, and administrators about HIV education in Ugandan secondary schools. Results indicated significant differences between these…
Abstract
This study examines attitudes of students, teachers, and administrators about HIV education in Ugandan secondary schools. Results indicated significant differences between these groups regarding perspectives about sexuality, transmission of HIV, and AIDS stigma. Behavioral assessment indicated low prevalence of high-risk activities among students, which implies a need for continued education and behavioral reinforcement in the curriculum in the intervention programs for behavioral maintenance. This study provides important insights as to how a comprehensive HIV education program can be more effectively and efficiently integrated in the school system. An ongoing discussion within the public and private sector of the country addresses the need for a comprehensive education curriculum, which includes teacher training, peer education, and strong involvement of governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Results from this study provide an important step in this process.
David Garland Buckman, Arvin D. Johnson and Donna L. Alexander
The purpose of this paper is to examine selection practices of school districts by capturing the promotion of teachers to assistant principal positions to determine if: there is a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine selection practices of school districts by capturing the promotion of teachers to assistant principal positions to determine if: there is a relationship between employability and assistant principal promotion (within-school, within-district, and external); and if the state-specific educational leadership policy directly impacts the employability of assistant principal candidates.
Design/methodology/approach
Principals in the state of Georgia were the unit of analysis, and data collected included personal characteristics of each participant when entering their first assistant principal position, school characteristics of the place of promotion, and type of promotion (internally within-school, internally within-district, and externally). Both descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis were utilized to examine the impact of type of promotion as well as the state-specific educational leadership policy on participant employability at the time of promotion.
Findings
This study found a significant positive relationship between internal promotion (within-school) and employability as well as a negative association between participant employability and Georgia state-specific policy. Additional findings indicate a positive relationship between combination schools (i.e. grades K-8; 6-12) and participant employability.
Originality/value
This study advances the HRM literature concerning employee selection by expanding the scope of hiring practices outside of the private sector and provides focus on the public sector, specifically, the public school environment. In addition, the focal position (public school administrators in the state of Georgia) has yet to be utilized in employee selection research in the areas of internal and external promotion. Previous researchers have studied the probability of internal and external promotion based on demographic factors such as race and gender, however, this specific study uses distinctive predictor variables backed by literature to evaluate applicant employability.
Details
Keywords
Peggy C. Kirby, Louis V. Paradise and Russell Protti
Sorts by theme cases involving ethical dilemmas and actions takenin each as described by 23 practising US school administrators inresponses to a questionnaire: the majority…
Abstract
Sorts by theme cases involving ethical dilemmas and actions taken in each as described by 23 practising US school administrators in responses to a questionnaire: the majority involved issues of teacher competence. The ethical orientation of the administrators was found to be normally distributed with respect to the five‐level Van Hoose and Paradise model. Only one administrator demonstrated all six components of the moral reasoning described by Howe (1986); most lacked the courage to act on the resolution they preferred. Discusses implications for the selection and training of school administrators.
Details
Keywords
Yong‐Lyun Kim and C. Cryss Brunner
The purpose of this study is to investigate differences and/or similarities between women's and men's career mobility toward the superintendency in terms of career pathways and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate differences and/or similarities between women's and men's career mobility toward the superintendency in terms of career pathways and movement patterns, with specific attention to women's career pathways as they correspond with their aspiration to the superintendency.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study of upper level educational administrators in the USA, typical career pathways were identified for four targeted groups of the study: men superintendents; women superintendents; women central office administrators who aspire to the superintendency; and women central office administrators who do not aspire to the superintendency. Four pathways for each group were drawn by analyzing data related to survey respondents' professional experiences. In the analysis, descriptive methods including frequencies and percentages were used in drawing pathways.
Findings
One of the major findings from confirmed that career pathways for women in educational administration are different than those of men who typically become superintendents. While many men administrators had worked in line‐role positions and moved vertically up to the superintendency, women generally traveled to the superintendency through staff roles and their career mobility patterns were more often horizontal. In addition, significant differences were found between the career patterns of aspiring and non‐aspiring women central office administrators. The results of the study raise the question of whether particular career pathways actually create higher quality superintendents.
Originality/value
The study includes data from women central office administrators (aspiring and non‐aspiring), a large and recent data set that has been missing from most studies of career mobility. The inclusion of this data set allows one to identify: differences between women who do and who do not aspire; differences between seated women superintendents and aspiring and non‐aspiring central office administrators; and the potential added value that women bring to the role of superintendent of schools.
Details