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UVM Theses and Dissertations

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Format:
Print
Author:
Capone, Adrienne M.
Dept./Program:
College of Education and Social Services
Year:
2013
Degree:
Ed. D.
Abstract:
Teachers have a significant effect on students' success in academics (Goe, Bell, & Little, 2008; Hanushek, Rivkin, Rothstein, & Podgursky, 2004; Harris & Sass, 2011; Rockoff, Jacob, Kane, & StaIger, 2011), making the hiring of a teacher a critical event in the quest for increased student achievement. In the last decade, research about teacher quality and teacher hiring has identified characteristics ofthe teacher labor market, including the background characteristics of college students that choose to enter the teaching profession, where they look for jobs, and in particular, the tendency of new teachers to self-sort into jobs where they are close to home or where they feel comfortable or familiar within the school's social context (Boyd, Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2005; Cannata, 2010). Recent scholarship has also shed light on how superintendents, principals, and other hiring officials search for and hire teachers.
In this dissertation, I explore the process of hiring teachers in public schools in order to uncover practices commonly used to match applicants to jobs. This study is a qualitative investigation ofthe hiring process in five New England secondary schools and includes narrative analysis of interviews with hiring officials and successful teacher candidates as well as content analysis ofthe job postings, candidate applications, and employer protocols for hiring. The data in this study was coded in two stages, first for topical information about each job site, and later, for recurrent themes. Findings are written as a chronology of hiring from job posting to job offer and include an introduction to the locale and demographic features of each school.
This research illuminates a variety of hiring mechanisms in secondary schools, including the school and location attributes that attract teaching candidates, school principals' insights about candidates and their hiring decisions, and candidate perceptions of the hiring process. I argue that that the strength of a local community plays a significant role in recruitment, and that helping applicants understand school contexts, including location, cultural climate, and a school's vision for student learning may increase candidate quality and optimize the job-fit of potentially strong teachers. In addition, local policies and lack of incentives may frustrate the hiring potential of hard to-staff schools. The findings also reveal applicant perceptions of the job market, the methods that they use to decide where to apply for work as a teacher, and the difficulties that job-seekers sometimes face in obtaining a position.
This research provides a close-up view of the teacher hiring process, illuminating the critical role of the employer's actions in promoting a school's qualities and the need for revision of practices and policies that inhibit the hiring ofthe best candidates.