The academic success of any school depends on its teachers. However, relatively little research exists on the qualities principals value in teacher hiring, and we know almost nothing about charter school principals' preferences. This article addresses this gap in the literature using survey results for a matched sample of charter and traditional…

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for measuring innovation in charter schools. The authors ask two questions: (1) What practices constitute innovation in various local and state contexts?; and (2) Do levels and types of innovation differ between charter schools and traditional public schools? The authors' sample frame includes…

This paper provides the first comparison of principals' preferences for teacher characteristics across traditional public and charter schools. Understanding how charter principals' preferences differ from those of public school principals contributes to scholarship on both teacher labor markets and charter schools. One of the first studies of…

This article examines the position of charter schools in prospective elementary teachers' job search decisions. Using a labor market segmentation framework, it explores teacher applicants' decisions to apply to charter schools. The data come from a mixed-methods longitudinal study of prospective teachers looking for their first job. This article…

The organizational context of charter schools may facilitate the formation of a strong teacher community. In particular, a focused school mission and increased control over teacher hiring may lead to stronger teacher professional communities. This paper uses the 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey to compare the level of teacher community in…