High school teacher assignment and the new governance of teacher quality.

Abstract

The matching of teachers to course sections is a routine practice in the management of secondary schools, has potentially far reaching consequences for school outcomes, and has been an indirect target of several major recent federal policies, but it has so far been little studied. This exploratory qualitative research examines closely the practice of teacher hiring and assignment in four case study schools in two districts in Maryland, as the regulation of schooling undergoes a potentially transformative shift from a governance regime based on inputs-based accountability to outcomes-based accountability. The public reporting of these outcomes and other attached consequences are thought to provide incentives for local school administrators to allocate these resources rationally---specifically human resources---for their technically effective use. Findings from this study demonstrate that local administrators are beginning to attempt to spread the wealth of their best teachers to classes that are assessed for accountability purposes and to both high- and low-track classes. This alters the previously inequitable practice of assigning the most senior teachers to upper-level honors and advanced classes while relegating the newest and least qualified teachers to lower-tracked classrooms. Although this study did not interrogate the effects of this new regime, it suggests that incomplete knowledge of those characteristics of teachers that are likely to produce high student outcomes will ultimately hinder appropriate decision making under technical rationality. The allocation of teachers based on student outcomes is further encumbered, for better or worse, by inherited teacher certification arrangements and carryovers from a seniority- and preference-based assignment system, by the highly qualified teacher provisions of No Child Left Behind, as well as by an anemic teacher labor market.