Evidence-Based Staffing in High Schools: Using Student Achievement Data in Teacher Hiring, Evaluation, and Assignment

Recent research has demonstrated that elementary school leaders, under pressure to meet benchmarks set by state and federal governments, have begun "staffing to the test," moving to tested grades and subjects teachers whose previous students made substantive learning gains. This is particularly true in lower-performing schools or schools that recently experienced a drop in performance, as measured by the grade they received from the state accountability system. What is not known, however, is how widespread this phenomenon has become. Moreover, little is known about whether and how performance data is used by administrators of high schools, where scheduling complexity is amplified by graduation requirements, larger enrollments, and credentialing requirements that mandate teachers to be certified in all the subjects that they teach. By surveying high school principals in Florida and Texas, this article attempts to fill this gap.