Research in sociology demonstrates the way social connections shape access to information about job opportunities. In education, we understand less about how social networks impact the job process for marginalized teachers and teachers in nontraditional labor markets. This study examines how teachers in New Orleans and Detroit, cities with high concentrations of charter schools, use their networks to search for jobs, and how their experiences vary by race and gender. We find that in choice-rich environments, there was an extensive reliance on social networks in the hiring process, and teachers had different access to key social networks that can help to land jobs. Hiring decisions and unequal access to job opportunities among teacher candidates, in part due to the reliance on networks, created conditions where teachers who cultivated stronger networks, or with access to the “right” networks, had greater opportunity, with implications for racial and gender equity and diversity.

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In-school suspensions represent one of the most frequently employed components of school exclusionary discipline systems, and they are also largely left up to the discretion of principals. The purpose of this study is to investigate in-school suspension disparities across student racial/ethnic groups, with a focus on differences between school geographic locales. We also examine the extent to which student to leader racial/ethnic matching is associated with the attenuation of in-school suspension outcomes for students of color. Drawing on state wide administrative data from Texas, representing over 24 million unique student-year observations, we use descriptive statistics and regression modeling to understand the relationship between student race/ethnicity and in-school suspension outcomes. The findings represent evidence of persistent in-school suspension disparities, specifically for Black students in non-urban school locales. Our findings also demonstrate a small but meaningful reduction in the likelihood of in-school suspension for a Black student in an urban school with a Black leader. We conclude with implications for educational leadership and policy, including a discussion of school leader hiring practices, culturally relevant school leadership, and the structuring of school disciplinary policies towards more equitable student outcomes.

Background: As gentrification transforms the physical, cultural, and demographic character of urban landscapes, an expansive body of research has generated insights into the meanings and implications of this process for public schools. How school leaders facilitate or constrain school gentrification is a growing area of inquiry. Research Design: This article analyzes the literature on school gentrification and presents a conceptual model to frame how school leaders’ responses influence the trajectory of school transformation. Results: Drawing on 18 studies of school gentrification’s dynamics, we outline how school leaders communicate and market schools to families, cultivate school climates, and manage personnel and resources amid gentrification. Conclusions: We argue that school leaders play critical roles in gentrification processes and that their actions can interrupt or exacerbate inequities in gentrifying schools. We conclude with implications for policy, research, and practice.