School Principal Race, Teacher Racial Diversity, and Student Achievement

2021/02/10 by Brendan Bartanen, Jason A. Grissom · 7 citations
Social Sciences · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Parental Involvement in Education #Diverse Educational Innovations Studies

paper · doi:10.3368/jhr.58.4.0218-9328r2

Abstract

Exploiting variation from principal and teacher transitions over long administrative data panels from Missouri and Tennessee, we estimate the effects of principal race on the racial composition of a school’s teachers. Evidence from the two states is strikingly similar. Principals increase the proportion of same-race teachers in the school by 1.9–2.3 percentage points, on average. Both increased hiring and increased retention of same-race teachers explain this compositional change. Further, leveraging longitudinal student-level data from Tennessee, we find that having a same-race principal improves math achievement, but this effect largely operates through avenues other than the racial composition of the teaching staff.

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