Nationally, 18% of principals turn over each year, yet research has not yet credibly established the effects of this turnover on student and teacher outcomes. Using statewide data from Missouri and Tennessee, we employ a difference-in-differences model with a matched comparison group to estimate arguably causal effects. We find that principal turnover lowers school achievement by .03 SD in the next year, on average. Effects vary by transition type, with larger negative effects for transfers to other schools but no or even positive later effects of demotions of (presumably lower-performing) principals. Principal turnover also increases teacher turnover, but this does not explain the drop in student achievement. Replacement with an experienced successor can largely offset negative principal turnover effects.
BarnesG.CroweE.SchaeferB. (2007). The cost of teacher turnover in five states: A pilot study. Washington, DC: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.
2.
BéteilleT.KalogridesD.LoebS. (2012). Stepping stones: Principal career paths and school outcomes. Social Science Research, 41, 904–919.
3.
BoydD.GrossmanP.IngM.LankfordH.LoebS.WyckoffJ. (2011). The influence of school administrators on teacher retention decisions. American Educational Research Journal, 48, 303–333.
4.
CarrollT. G. (2007). Policy brief: The high cost of teacher turnover (Technical report). Washington, DC: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.
5.
ChettyR.FriedmanJ.RockoffJ. (2014). Measuring the impacts of teachers I: Evaluating bias in teacher value-added estimates. American Economic Review, 104, 2633–2679.
CoelliM.GreenD. A. (2012). Leadership effects: School principals and student outcomes. Economics of Education Review, 31, 92–109.
8.
Farley-RippleE. N.RaffelJ. A.WelchJ. C. (2012). Administrator career paths and decision processes. Journal of Educational Administration, 50, 788–816.
9.
GoldringR.TaieS. (2018). Principal attrition and mobility: Results from the 2016–17 principal follow-up survey (NCES 2018-066) (Technical report). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
10.
GrissomJ. A. (2011). Can good principals keep teachers in disadvantaged schools? Linking principal effectiveness to teacher satisfaction and turnover in hard-to-staff environments. Teachers College Record, 113, 2552–2585.
11.
GrissomJ. A.BartanenB. (2019a). Principal effectiveness and principal turnover. Education Finance and Policy. Advance online publication. doi:10.1162/edfp_a_00256
12.
GrissomJ. A.BartanenB. (2019b). Strategic retention: Principal effectiveness and teacher turnover in multiple-measure teacher evaluation systems. American Educational Research Journal, 56, 514–555.
13.
GrissomJ. A.BartanenB.MitaniH. (2019). Principal sorting and the distribution of principal quality. AERA Open, 5(2), 1–21. doi:10.1177/2332858419850094
14.
GrissomJ. A.BlissettR. S. L.MitaniH. (2018). Evaluating school principals: Supervisor ratings of principal practice and principal job performance. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 40, 446–472.
15.
GrissomJ. A.KalogridesD.LoebS. (2015). Using student test scores to measure principal performance. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37, 3–28.
16.
GrissomJ. A.LoebS.MasterB. (2013). Effective instructional time use for school leaders: Longitudinal evidence from observations of principals. Educational Researcher, 42, 433–444.
17.
GrissomJ. A.VianoS. L.SelinJ. L. (2015). Understanding employee turnover in the public sector: Insights from research on teacher mobility. Public Administration Review, 76, 241–251.
18.
GuarinoC. M.SantibañezL.DaleyG. A. (2006). Teacher recruitment and retention: A review of the recent empirical literature. Review of Educational Research, 76, 173–208.
19.
KraftM. A.MarinellW. H.YeeD. (2016). School organizational contexts, teacher turnover, and student achievement: Evidence from panel data. American Educational Research Journal, 53, 1411–1449.
20.
LeithwoodK.JantziD. (2000). The effects of transformational leadership on organizational conditions and student engagement with school. Journal of Educational Administration, 38, 112–129.
21.
LoebS.BeteilleT.KalogridesD. (2012). Effective schools: Teacher hiring, assignment, development, and retention. Education Finance and Policy, 7, 269–304.
22.
MarksH. M.PrintyS. M. (2003). Principal leadership and school performance: An integration of transformational and instructional leadership. Educational Administration Quarterly, 39, 370–397.
23.
MasterB. (2014). Staffing for success: Linking teacher evaluation and school personnel management in practice. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36, 207–227.
24.
MillerA. (2013). Principal turnover and student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 36, 60–72.
25.
MueserP. R.TroskeK. R.GorislavskyA. (2007). Using state administrative data to measure program performance. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 89, 761–783.
26.
RobinsonV. M. J.LloydC. A.RoweK. J. (2008). The impact of leadership on student outcomes: An analysis of the differential effects of leadership types. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44, 635–674.
27.
RonfeldtM.LoebS.WyckoffJ. (2013). How teacher turnover harms student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 50, 4–36.
28.
SandlerD. H.SandlerR. (2014). Multiple event studies in public finance and labor economics: A simulation study with applications. Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, 39(1–2), 31–57.
29.
SebastianJ.AllensworthE. (2012). The influence of principal leadership on classroom instruction and student learning: A study of mediated pathways to learning. Educational Administration Quarterly, 48, 626–663.
30.
SimonN. S.JohnsonS. M. (2015). Teacher turnover in high-poverty schools: What we know and can do. Teachers College Record, 117(3), 1–36.
31.
WalshE.DotterD. (2019). The impact of replacing principals on student achievement in DC public schools. Education Finance and Policy, 1–53. doi:10.1162/edfp_a_00279
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
