Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Overall 20% of public school principals in the United States leave their school each year, yet we know little about how principal turnover affects schools. Compared to teacher turnover, determinants and consequences of principal turnover are understudied. Recent studies measuring the effect of principal mobility on public school performance has produced somewhat mixed results (Grissom and Bartanen, 2018; Miller, 2013; Coelli and Green, 2012; Béteille et al., 2012; Branch et al., 2009).

If principal mobility affects school quality in either the short or the long run the most likely mechanism is by changing the school’s educational environment. Recent evidence suggests that school environmental factors are associated with teacher effectiveness and mobility (Kraft et al., 2016). On one hand, a leadership change could cause confusion and discord. On the other hand, districts might systematically remove principals who have failed to provide a successful environment for students and teachers, and thus leadership changes might tend to produce improvements in the school’s conditions.

This paper examines the impact of principal turnover on school environment and teacher attrition by using longitudinal pedagogue data from New York City covering the years 2006-2007 through 2016-2017, linked to school performance data and NYC school climate surveys. In addition to estimating the effect of principal changes on measures of student outcomes and teacher attrition, we look inside the black box by measuring the effect of principal turnover on descriptions of several measures of the educational environment as measured by teacher, student, and parent responses on an annual survey administered by the New York City Department of Education.

We employ a differences-in-differences approach that measures systematic changes in outcomes that occur in years before and after a school changes its principal. Preliminary findings suggest that installing a new principal generally has positive effects on student test score gains within the school and on several measures of the educational environment. We find positive effects on general leadership that a new principal makes the school run smoothly and that individual has a better understanding of how children learn in school compared with former principals. There are also positive effects on discipline and order. For instance, teachers report that they feel safer and their school has less crime and violence when they had a new principal. However, we also find evidence of a significant and substantial increase in teacher turnover in the first few years following a change in the school’s principal, with the largest effect for teachers with fewer than five years of experience. From a staffing perspective, policymakers need to identify strategies that ensure that principal turnover not only causes the least amount of disruption in schools, but also maximizes the potential positive benefits. This research speaks to this dilemma and sheds light on the mechanisms through which principal turnover can improve outcomes in some situations.