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Push or Pull: School-Level Factors That Influence Teacher Mobility in Turnaround Schools

Recruiting and retaining teachers can be challenging for many schools, especially in low-performing urban schools in which teachers turn over at higher rates. In this study, we examine three types of school-level attributes that may influence teachers’ decisions to enter or transfer schools: malleable school processes, structural features of employment, and school characteristics. Using adaptive conjoint analysis survey design with a sample of teachers from low-performing, urban, turnaround schools in Tennessee, we find that five of the seven most highly valued features of schools are malleable processes: consistent administrative support, consistent enforcement of discipline, school safety, small class sizes, and availability of high-quality professional development. In particular, teachers rated as effective are more likely to prefer performance-based pay than teachers rated ineffective. We validate our results using administrative data from Tennessee on teachers’ actual mobility patterns.

Keywords
turnaround schools, teacher labor markets, teacher preferences, adaptive conjoint analysis
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/aknp-g506

EdWorkingPaper suggested citation:

Viano, Samantha, Lam Pham, Gary T. Henry, Adam Kho, and Ron Zimmer. (). Push or Pull: School-Level Factors That Influence Teacher Mobility in Turnaround Schools. (EdWorkingPaper: 19-46). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/aknp-g506

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