Show Them the Mission: A Comparison of Teacher Recruitment Incentives in High Need Communities

Abstract

Objective. Most public organizations use both materialistic and idealistic appeals to attract valued employees, with the latter being particularly important for difficult jobs. Teaching in high poverty communities is one such job, though none have studied whether successful high poverty schools such as the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) schools make relatively greater use of public service appeals in teacher recruitment. In education, we identify these materialistic and idealistic appeals as teachercentered and student-centered incentives. Teacher-centered incentives are those that appeal to a teacher's desire for higher compensation or advancement opportunities, whereas student-centered appeals attempt to attract teachers with a public service mission. Method. We compare the use of teacher-centered and student-centered appeals in teacher recruitment by the universe of KIPP networks (n = 33) and neighboring traditional public school districts (n = 34), each serving disadvantaged populations. Coders record personnel website use of four teacher-centered appeals (including salary and benefits) and four student-centered appeals. Results. Chi-square tests show that KIPP schools make less use of teacher-centered appeals, especially monetary compensation, and more use of student-centered appeals in teacher recruitment. Conclusion. Supplemented by fieldwork, findings suggest that appeals to mission may work better than merit pay in recruiting effective teachers for high poverty schools. Teacher Recruitment in High Need SchoolsSalary, benefits, and other individualistic incentives are thought to be the primary inducements for college graduates to apply for many jobs, reflecting the largely materialistic reasons why most young people choose to attend college in the first place (Arum and Roksa, 2011). Yet altruism rather than salary (and other material incentives) is often noted as the key motive enticing teachers to enter their profession. This relative altruism is undoubtedly *

A Dry Pipeline: CMO Teacher Hiring in an Uncertain Teacher Labor Market

“…The hiring process at Polaris begins at the network level with CMO-based social media and advertising. Similar to Shuls and Maranto's (2014) and Maranto and Shuls' (2012) findings of KIPP schools, Polaris' advertisements and websites lean heavily upon "student-centered messaging" (e.g., appeals to teamwork, public service, student outcomes/opportunities) more than "teachercentered messaging" (e.g., appeals to salary and benefits) and are more explicit about teacher advancement and professional growth opportunities. Applicants go through a strikingly similar process to the one outlined by Simon et al (2015): an online application, followed by an initial phone screening of fit and credentials with network-level recruitment personnel.…”

“…As mentioned earlier and as is true of numerous CMOs (e.g., DeArmond et al, 2012;Farrell et al, 2012;Shuls & Maranto, 2014;Torres, 2019), Polaris determines and controls much of the functioning, including hiring. The hiring process at Polaris begins at the network level with CMO-based social media and advertising.…”

Seeing the Visibly Invisible: An Intersectional Analysis of the Employee Experiences of Black Female Rural Educators

“…Given the underrepresentation of educators of color (Taie et al, 2017), especially for Black women in leadership positions (Bailes & Guthery, 2020; Peters, 2019) and in rural areas (Tran & Smith, 2020), it is important we understand what allowed our respondents to disrupt the trend. Although altruism has been found to be a motivating factor for many who enter the education profession (Shuls & Maranto, 2014), it seems to be particularly the case for people in high poverty rural locales (Tran, Hardie, et al, 2020). Our participants spoke of the desire to “give back” to and serve as role models for the Black youth in the community.…”

Untitled

“…If the utility provided by meaningfulness was consistent among employees, then economically challenged and rural communities would have too much demand for educators and healthcare providers. Instead, incentives are offered in the United States (Rosenblatt and Hart 2000) and other countries (e.g., Singh et al 2015) to attract physicals to rural areas, and similarly, incentives are offered to educators to work in economically challenged communities (Shuls and Maranto, 2014). If utility including meaningfulness was constant, then homogeneity would exist for worker benefit preferences, but instead, research has long found that workers in the same industry have different preferences (e.g., Kocher et al 2017;Farber 1978).…”