Research addressing attraction and selection of employees within the public school setting seems to indicate that the higher a school's student achievement the more likely a potential job candidate is to assess a position at that school favorably. However, the validity of this finding has failed to be assessed with “real teachers” accepting actual job offers. To fill this void, we compared the satisfaction with working conditions of newly appointed teachers in high- and low-performing elementary schools at the beginning and end of their work year. We cast these findings on a cognitive dissonance framework and our results are consistent with cognitive dissonance theory. That is, once teacher candidates choose to accept a position in a low-performing school district they experience a higher level of satisfaction with their working conditions than those accepting a new position in a high-performing school district. This initial difference between groups disappeared by the end of the work year.
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