Abstract
Informal and institutional barriers may limit teacher movement between charter schools and traditional public schools (TPSs). However, we know little about how teachers choose schools in areas with a robust charter school sector. This study uses qualitative data from 123 teachers to examine teachers’ job decisions in three cities with varying charter densities: San Antonio, Detroit, and New Orleans. Our findings illuminate different types of segmentation and factors that facilitate and limit mobility between sectors. We find that structural policies within each sector can create barriers to mobility across charter schools and TPSs and that teachers’ ideological beliefs and values serve as informal, personal barriers that reinforce divides between sectors. This study offers implications for policy in districts with school choice.
Keywords
Cities with large shares of charter schools are seeing structural changes to teacher labor markets. Charter schools typically operate under less rigid state guidelines, have greater flexibility in hiring and compensation, and exist in markets where school districts are no longer the only hiring agency. They can significantly change local teacher labor markets or attract different types of teachers to the field (Preston, Goldring, Berends, & Cannata, 2012)—who, compared with teachers in traditional public schools (TPSs), are more likely to seek schools where they agree with the mission and be less experienced, younger, and willing to work longer hours for less pay (Cannata & Penaloza, 2012; Ni, 2017; Oberfield, 2017; Stuit & Smith, 2012).
Indeed, prior research examining the mobility of charter school and TPS teachers finds empirical evidence of this type of labor market segmentation between charter schools and TPSs, with limited mobility and varying conditions across sectors (Cannata, 2011; Esbenshade, 2018; Gulosino & Ni, 2018). Rather than a single teacher labor market, with homogeneous and interchangeable labor, there may be a segmented, or dual labor market, broken up into “primary” and “secondary” segments (Gulosino & Ni, 2018). According to the theory of segmented labor markets, jobs in the primary sector are characterized by high-wage, skilled work with good working conditions and job stability. Conversely, workers in the secondary sector have low-wage, unskilled jobs with minimal benefits and less employment security. Mobility between sectors is typically limited as institutional or structural restraints are a key feature of segmentation (Piore, 1972; Reich, Gordon, & Edwards, 1973).
Charter school entry may change the dynamics of the local labor market; yet, how they do so is theoretically ambiguous (Jackson, 2012). Greater competition for students might encourage schools to focus more on teacher quality to attract and retain students (Hoxby, 2000; Jackson, 2012), creating greater competition for teachers as well. Schools might have a harder time recruiting teachers with the entrance of new competitors. Charter schools might also increase the supply of teachers by attracting those who may not have otherwise considered teaching or encouraging teachers to remain in the field. For example, charter schools in some states can hire teaching staff without certification (Education Commission of the States, 2019), or charter schools might recruit more from alternative pathways and programs such as Teach for America (Jameson Brewer, Kretchmar, Sondel, Ishmael, & McGlinn Manfra, 2016; Kretchmar, Sondel, & Ferrare, 2014). Such policies can reinforce segmentation between sectors and could create a second class of workers unable to move out of lower paying and less secure jobs in the secondary sector, particularly for teachers of color who are displaced by closed TPSs (Buras, 2015; White, 2016).
To understand what drives labor market segmentation, we examine teachers’ job decisions using qualitative data from 123 teachers actively seeking jobs in three cities with high, but varying, densities of charter schools: San Antonio, Detroit, and New Orleans. These cities provide a unique opportunity to examine how teachers’ job search processes and preferences play out in settings where large proportions of teachers work in charter schools. We ask, What are the patterns of labor market segmentation across our sites? How do teachers’ preferences for working in a charter or traditional public school relate to segmentation? What conditions facilitate or prevent teachers’ switching between charter and traditional public school sectors?
By elaborating on teachers’ search and decision-making processes, this study adds to our conceptual understanding of the supply side of teacher labor markets in districts with school choice. Previous studies have primarily examined where teachers are hired—in a charter school or TPS—not how they decided to apply to the sector or why they did or did not accept the offer. Although researchers have observed less mobility between sectors (e.g., moves from charter school to TPSs) in administrative data, without qualitative data, researchers and policymakers lack an understanding of why these moves occur or fail to occur. Understanding the contextual factors that shape teachers’ job decisions may explain patterns of labor market segmentation found in quantitative studies of charter school and TPS teacher mobility and identify potential areas for intervention.
Background
Labor Market Segmentation
To frame our analysis of how teachers decide where to work in settings with moderate to high densities of charter schools, we draw on the concept of teacher labor market segmentation (Cannata, 2011; Gulosino & Ni, 2018; Piore, 1972; Reich et al., 1973). Historically, the literature on labor market segmentation focused on divisions of workers by race, sex, educational credentials, and industry grouping, arguing that these groups appeared to operate in different labor markets, primary and secondary sectors, “with different working conditions, different promotional opportunities, different wages, and different market institutions” (Reich et al., 1973, p. 359). Researchers studying segmentation, or “dual labor markets,” were concerned with how race, class, and gender affected access to jobs in the more desirable primary sector, and whether low-income workers of color became trapped in secondary segments of the labor market, which had higher rates of turnover and unemployment.
Similarly, the teacher labor market can be divided into “primary” and “secondary” segments (Gulosino & Ni, 2018). Jobs in the primary segment typically have greater stability, higher salaries, collective bargaining, and predictable career paths, whereas the secondary segment lacks these features, often characterized by lower wages, temporary contracts, and unpredictability (Cannata, 2011; Gulosino & Ni, 2018). In most teacher labor markets, jobs in TPSs comprise the primary segment. These positions typically have the stability and higher salaries that are characteristic of the primary sector, and, in most cities, they comprise the majority of positions available, whereas the charter sector is a small, peripheral segment. However, some teachers desire features of the secondary segment. The charter sector offers an alternative option with potential for greater autonomy, mission alignment, and like-minded colleagues, which can lead to greater job satisfaction (Cannata, 2011; Malloy & Wohlstetter, 2003; Renzulli, Parrott, & Beattie, 2011; Torres, 2014, 2016). In cities with large shares of charter schools, the “secondary” segment is no longer peripheral, representing an equal or greater share of the teacher labor market than TPSs.
Although the introduction and expansion of school choice is expected to increase competition for teachers in a local labor market, and some research has found impacts of competition on outcomes such as teacher salaries or the distribution of teacher quality (Jackson, 2012; Taylor, 2008; Vedder & Hall, 2000; Welsch, 2011), labor market segmentation may limit these effects. If different teachers enter charter schools, or if most teachers avoid them, charter schools will have a “marginal effect on teacher hiring and staffing patterns” in the labor market as a whole (Cannata, 2011, p. 129), because charter schools and TPSs would not compete directly for teachers in a segmented labor market. Furthermore, segmentation is important to the extent that it creates “primary” and “secondary” labor markets associated with school work conditions and employment stability.
Recent empirical evidence using administrative data supports the theory of teacher labor market segmentation. Charter schools and TPSs have different working conditions and salaries, in part, because policies allow charter schools to deviate from step-lane pay scales or strict salary schedules (Carruthers, 2012; Podgursky & Ballou, 2001). Charter schools pay teachers less on average (Esbenshade, 2018; Gulosino & Ni, 2018; Harris & Plank, 2003), have higher teacher turnover (Stuit & Smith, 2012; Torres, 2014, 2016), require more work hours, hire less experienced and uncertified teachers when allowed to do so under state law (Burian-Fitzgerald, Luekens, & Strizek, 2004; Cannata & Penaloza, 2012; Podgursky & Ballou, 2001), and typically lack union representation (Gulosino & Ni, 2018; Vergari, 2007). In North Carolina, less qualified and less effective teachers move to charter schools, which tend to be located in urban areas with more non-White students (Carruthers, 2012). And, there is some evidence that teachers in charter schools, particularly those managed by educational management organizations, have lower job satisfaction (Roch & Sai, 2017). These features of the charter sector appear to be consistent with those of a “secondary” segment of the labor market. However, with recent trends to unionize some charter schools (Matsudaira & Patterson, 2017; Superfine & Woo, 2018), as well as variation in state laws regarding charter school unions, some of these conditions may start to change, reflecting those in the TPS sector.
In segmented labor markets, there are often “institutional or informal boundaries that limit movement between subgroups in the labor market, such as charter and traditional public schools” (Cannata, 2011, p. 113). For example, there may be state policies or employer preferences regarding certification, a lack of familiarity, or misinformation that prevent mobility across TPSs and charter schools (Cannata, 2011). Indeed, Gulosino and Ni (2018) and Esbenshade (2018), studying teacher mobility in Utah and Pennsylvania, respectively, find limited mobility between TPS and charter sectors. However, from these quantitative studies of teacher mobility, it is not possible to understand why teachers are less mobile across sectors, and what mechanisms reinforce or disrupt typical patterns of segmentation. Furthermore, most studies of segmentation have been conducted statewide or occurred in contexts that have relatively lower charter school market shares. However, statewide analyses may not be the best unit of analysis to understand segmentation in teacher labor markets because teachers’ job searches are often very local (Boyd, Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2008), and the high charter concentration in urban areas might be diluted when looked at statewide. It is also unclear how segmentation occurs in places where charter schools comprise the majority of the market (e.g., Detroit, at 53%), or virtually all of the market (e.g., New Orleans, at 91%).
Teachers’ Job Decisions
To understand labor market segmentation, we also draw on literature about how teachers make decisions in the job search (Behling, Labovitz, & Gainer, 1968; Pounder & Merrill, 2001; Young, Rinehart, & Place, 1989). As economic beings, teachers weigh the advantages and drawbacks of objective, measurable factors, such as salary and benefits. However, teachers are also psychological beings; they rely on subjective factors, such as congruence of personality, perceived job satisfaction (Behling et al., 1968), climate, fit, and the depth of contact with the organization before hiring. Research examining these preferences for schools has found that teachers prefer to work close to where they grew up or went to college (Boyd et al., 2008), are influenced by their social networks (Granovetter, 1973; Lin & Dumin, 1986), and make decisions based on working conditions, more than salary (Bacolod, 2007; Ingersoll, 2001; Loeb & Reininger, 2004).
Research on teachers’ preferences across sectors provides some insights into the drivers of segmentation. In some cases, charter school and TPS teachers share similar preferences when making job decisions. On the whole, both groups are influenced by salary and wages and prefer schools with positive working and organizational conditions, such as administrative support, school culture, and advancement opportunities (Cannata, 2011; Cannata & Penaloza, 2012; Feng & Sass, 2018; Little & Bartlett, 2010; Loeb & Reininger, 2004). The two groups’ preference diverge, however, on a number of other important factors. When given a choice for jobs, teachers who chose to work in TPSs listed positive reputation, job security, geographic location, unionization, and school context familiarity as the most important factors (Boyd et al., 2008; Cannata & Penaloza, 2012), whereas those who chose charter schools listed school mission, autonomy over teaching, small school size, influence over school policies, type of instructional approach, and tuition/loan forgiveness (Cannata, 2011; Cannata & Penaloza, 2012; Torres, 2014; White, 2016). Furthermore, research on TPS teachers shows that many tend to avoid or leave urban schools, largely due to the working conditions associated with low-income schools (Boyd et al., 2008; Hanushek, Kain, & Rivkin, 2004; Hanushek & Rivkin, 2010; Horng, 2009; Hughes, 2012; Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2002; Loeb, Kalogrides, & Horng, 2010; Simon & Johnson, 2015). Teachers who actively choose to work in charter schools, however, tend to be more mission focused and drawn to work in urban schools with low-income students of color (Cannata & Penaloza, 2012; Torres, 2014). Teachers of color in both sectors often prefer to work with students of color to serve as role models, contribute to their communities, and advance social justice in schools (Achinstein, Ogawa, Sexton, & Freitas, 2010; Brown, 2014; D’Amico, Pawlewicz, Earley, & McGeehan, 2017). Although these divergent preferences exist, teachers from either sector who work in schools serving low-income students of color are more likely to leave their school, seeking better working conditions or leaving the profession altogether (Papay et al., 2017).
Much of the existing quantitative research on teacher labor markets examines revealed preferences (e.g., characteristics of the schools where teachers end up), but it is also important to examine teachers’ expressed preferences through qualitative and survey research to get at the subtle factors truly driving their choices (Cannata, 2010). For example, it is possible that a teacher lands a job in a school that is not “a good fit,” perhaps due to culture or climate, even though it appears to be a desirable position in other measures (e.g., salary, other working conditions). Without studying teachers’ expressed preferences, researchers cannot uncover this mismatch and, therefore, will be unable to explore the implications of this discrepancy. Furthermore, researchers may interpret the reason for the teacher’s move to be related to observable characteristics, such as student population, or assume that the move was voluntary, when, in reality, it could be out of desperation (Cannata, 2011). Research relying on observations of teacher movements has been unable to address, for example, teachers’ motives, why they select particular schools, or which schools they choose among. Furthermore, preferences that are likely consequential in teachers’ decisions may be based on perceptions of, rather than actual, working conditions or on variables that are not easily measurable, and, thus, would not appear in a study of revealed preferences. Finally, although teachers may express preferences for certain characteristics (i.e., a position in a suburban school), scarce availability means they are making decisions in their job search that meet a second tier of preferences that cannot be captured in posthiring surveys and school characteristics data.
As such, we examine how school teachers’ preferences related to school type play a role in their job decisions in cities with varying degrees of charter density, to better understand how teachers’ preferences and labor market segmentation interact to influence the job search process. Our study also builds on Cannata’s (2011) research on prospective teachers entering segmented labor markets, by including current teachers to understand the extent to which segmentation is reinforced or disrupted during later moves.
Data and Method
Sample and Site Description
For this study, we interviewed 123 teachers who were active or recent job seekers. To ensure a diverse pool of teachers with different job search processes and preferences, we sampled teachers at different stages of their careers, from both TPSs and charter schools, and from different preparation pathways, employing a form of purposive sampling for maximum variation (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014). Our goal was to elaborate theory by understanding how patterns and preferences of job seekers in charter-dense cities vary or stay constant across teachers from diverse backgrounds.
We selected local labor markets in San Antonio (25% charter), Detroit (53% charter), and New Orleans (91% charter) because of their varying charter density. San Antonio is a major city in Texas with a population of about 1.4 million people. The population is 63% Latino, 26% White, and 6% African American (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016a). The majority of the 477,186 students enroll in one of the city’s 12 TPS districts (Texas Education Agency, 2017). Detroit, Michigan, is a midwestern city with a population of about 690,000 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015a). The city is 80% African American, 13% White, and 7% Latino. The central Detroit school district, Detroit Public Schools Community District, had a population of 47,277 students (83% African American, 13% Latino, 2% White, and 1% Asian). New Orleans, Louisiana, is a medium-sized city of 382,922 people (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016b). The population is 31% White, 59% African American, 3% Asian, and 6% Latino. African Americans are overrepresented, comprising 83% of the 48,203 student body (White students make up 8%), and 88% of students are economically disadvantaged. Few TPSs remained in New Orleans in the year of this study, but there were many TPSs in nearby parishes.
Data Collection
In each site, we recruited teachers who were currently in teacher preparation programs seeking their first jobs, as well as teachers who were already working in schools. To find teachers at the start of their careers, we posted on the listservs of traditional and alternative teacher preparation programs, targeting those that placed the most teachers in each site, and recruited at university job fairs. We recruited teachers who were already working, but switching jobs, via job fairs, direct emails to schools (e.g., the largest charter networks), alumni listservs, and snowball sampling (Miles et al., 2014). We conducted interviews in person and by phone between 2016 and 2018. Interviews were semi-structured, lasting 60 minutes each, and were recorded and transcribed. For consistency across interviews, we created protocols (Patton, 1990), asking teachers about the schools they considered, their priorities and preferences, and their decision-making process. Protocols were informed by prior literature about conditions that mattered to teachers and included questions about preferences for school type (e.g., charter or TPS) to capture elements related to segmentation. We asked teachers to describe an ideal teaching position, the schools and districts in which they were focusing their job search, where they sought information about schools, whether they had any preference for school type, what informed those preferences, and why particular schools were added or rejected (Ball, Davies, David, & Reay, 2002), which helped us to understand how school type shaped teachers’ decisions in settings with school choice. As part of each interview, teachers also completed a short survey, listing the schools they considered, applied to, or received offers from.
Each teacher was interviewed at least once during the job cycle, but if the teacher had not yet accepted an offer, we followed up with them in the following fall semester to learn about where they had landed, and how, if at all, their choices had changed. We interviewed 123 teachers total, and 50 of these teachers were interviewed twice because they had not yet completed the job search. (We were unable to interview 28 teachers, who were still searching for a position, a second time.) See Table 1 for a description of our sample.
Description of Sample
Note. TPS = traditional public school.
Data Analysis
To analyze data, we follow the method of “choice-set analysis” (Bell, 2009; Tierney, 1983). According to Bell (2009), the choice set is “an analytic tool that describes and quantifies [choosers’] bounded rationality” (p. 193). We examined how teachers construct the sets of schools they will apply to (“choice sets”) through in-depth interviews and short surveys. These data allowed us to construct lists of schools, districts, and charter management organizations (CMOs) each teacher considered. We then summarized their choice sets descriptively into categories to capture elements of segmentation (e.g., charter schools only, TPS only, casting a wide net by including private schools or out-of-state schools, or public schools only). We also coded for whether they were strongly leaning toward a specific school type. Our analysis focused on how teachers perceived their options in the overall market and when they invoked differences in traditional public and charter schools.
We coded the data in the qualitative software program Dedoose using a hybrid method (Miles & Huberman, 1994), where we first developed deductive codes from the literature on job search and teacher labor markets. Then, while coding, we generated codes inductively to capture new themes or concepts that arose. Using the coded data, we created teacher-level matrices to explore within-case and cross-case codes and patterns, tracing each teacher’s pathway into a particular job. For each teacher, we drew from the interview and questionnaire data to describe how they searched for jobs; how many jobs they considered, applied to, and received offers from; the stages and changes in their search; the types of schools they chose among; and the key drivers for their decisions, including school type. From the matrices, we wrote and refined analytic memos on emerging findings to address the study’s central questions about teachers’ job search processes, how they varied across research sites, and how they reinforced or were a product of labor market segmentation.
Patterns of Labor Market Segmentation
Across our sites, as expected, we found evidence of labor market segmentation. The TPS sector had characteristics of the primary segment of a labor market, such as greater stability, higher pay (in some cases), and job security, whereas the charter sector had characteristics of secondary segments of labor markets, especially high turnover and instability. In addition, current teachers within our sample were more likely to remain within a sector (charter or public) than switch between sectors. However, interestingly, we found variation in the extent and type of labor market segmentation across our three sites, driven, in part, by charter school market share (see Figure 1).
Segmentation in study sites.
San Antonio, with its comparatively smaller charter school market share, fit the typical model of segmentation (TPS as primary and charter schools as secondary). We characterized its labor market as having traditional segmentation. In New Orleans, where more than 90% of students attended charters, segmentation was more complex. In the New Orleans metropolitan area, surrounding parishes had TPSs, which served as the primary market. Indeed, there was a great deal of relocation to those districts immediately after Hurricane Katrina (Lincove, Barrett, & Strunk, 2018). But, in New Orleans, we saw segmentation within the charter sector that aligned with characteristics of primary and secondary labor markets. We characterized this as nested segmentation. Detroit, where about half of students attended charter schools, also had some traditional segmentation patterns; teachers viewed charter schools as a secondary market. But this was complicated by the fact that the central TPS district, Detroit Public Schools (DPS), was not viewed as part of the “primary” market, due to instability and financial troubles, and was a secondary option for most teachers. The true “primary” segment was in the suburbs. We characterize Detroit as having transitional labor market segmentation, as the charter sector there is growing, but has not achieved the level of saturation we see in New Orleans.
Next, we elaborate on how our evidence and findings help build a more nuanced theory around labor market segmentation before turning to the barriers that drive and maintain segmentation.
Traditional Labor Market Segmentation: San Antonio
San Antonio presented the starkest example of traditional segmentation, where TPSs comprised the primary segment, and charter schools the secondary segment. Most teachers in San Antonio preferred the TPS sector, including teachers from a range of preparation pathways and years of experience, in part, due to the higher starting pay. About 43% of the teachers were only considering TPSs in their choice sets, but 72% strongly preferred TPSs (see Table 2). Even when teachers applied to both charter schools and TPSs, their job decisions were driven by their concerns about salary and working conditions, and they often preferred TPSs.
Choice Sets and Barriers by Site
Note. TPS = traditional public school.
Teachers in San Antonio often described charter schools in terms of characteristics associated with secondary segments of labor markets, such as poor working conditions, lack of stability, and higher turnover. For example, one prospective teacher in San Antonio was concerned about the contract terms in charter schools: “They can terminate the contract for any reason. They don’t even have to tell you why because it’s not a public school.” She corrects herself, but goes on: “It’s a public school, but not a district-based public school. It’s literally anything, for any reason, they could say, ‘see you.’ And then I’m out of a job.” Concern over job security led most teachers to prioritize the TPS sector in San Antonio.
The distinction between primary and secondary sectors also became apparent when teachers began to consider other school types as the job search extended longer than expected. For example, in San Antonio, when teachers did not succeed in the primary segment, they often turned to charter schools. One teacher had had an unsuccessful round of applications. During her second try, she became “more open” to working in charter schools: I feel a little hesitant and a little more open towards the prospect of working at a charter school. I will definitely focus more of my efforts there in the next few weeks . . . I still may apply to traditional schools, but before I had barely applied to any charter schools.
In her case, as for others in San Antonio, charter schools were not the main consideration, but teachers who were still seeking a position late into the hiring period, such as late spring or summer, often broadened their searches to include charter schools. However, two prospective teachers in our sample held such strong preferences for TPSs that they took positions as teacher assistants, hoping they would transition into full-time teachers, rather than apply to charters.
Some teachers, however, did take jobs in the charter sector despite the desire to find work in a TPS. Two teachers were driven to charter schools more by “push” than “pull” factors. One teacher noted of the TPS she worked at, “There was low morale . . . Administration was really rough. I felt more harassed . . . It was constantly administrators always on your back, always in your room.” A few teachers who selected a charter out of desperation ended up being satisfied with their placements, citing perks such as bonuses and options for career advancement. Even with a positive experience, one teacher remained in the market, “always searching” for a better opportunity, particularly one that would provide pension options. Although teachers did try out the secondary charter sector, they tended not to stay, continuing to seek the more desirable characteristics associated with TPSs.
For most teachers in San Antonio, charter schools were a secondary option, one they turned to when they were desperate for a position. These patterns are in line with what the literature suggests for secondary segments of the labor market (Esbenshade, 2018; Gulosino & Ni, 2018; Harris & Plank, 2003), but we found different patterns in New Orleans and Detroit.
Nested Segmentation: New Orleans
In addition to traditional segmentation between sectors (charter and TPS), we also observed some evidence of segmentation within sectors in New Orleans. The New Orleans context flips our traditional understanding of teacher labor market segmentation, where the charter sector is typically a small, emerging secondary segment. In New Orleans, the charter sector was so large that, in some sense, it could be conceived of as the primary segment, even though it retained the characteristics of a secondary segment with regard to stability, workload, unionization, and benefits, and some teachers continued to prefer TPSs for these reasons. Some teachers in New Orleans, particularly those with more experience, ruled out charter schools because of the lack of pension system, job security, and teachers’ union in most charter schools. One teacher in a nearby TPS noted that her union “protects” her in the case of “legal situations,” and “makes it very, very difficult . . . to get fired.” Another New Orleans teacher noted, “It feels good to be where I’m at right now, but as I progress professionally, I think about what’s next. Our contracts are year to year . . . You can’t really count on being there next year.” Job insecurity was always on teachers’ minds, according to one New Orleans teacher, It’s just something that you have to stay on top of because of the fact that you never know when your last paycheck may come. Which is kind of disheartening because that means you can’t spend your best on trying to do the best for your students because you’re always in the back of your mind like, “What’s going to happen?”
Teachers believed this type of job insecurity was “something that comes with charter schools.”
At the same time, although teachers acknowledged the lack of stability, there was no real evidence that a desire for stability drove teachers’ decision-making or reflected sector preferences in New Orleans. For example, teachers checked school turnover rates (noting how many vacancies were posted) or attempted to find information about school unionization, but, for the most part, this did not lead to a rejection of the charter sector overall, with a few exceptions. Indeed, only 12% of teachers in New Orleans in our sample had a strong preference for TPSs, and less than 5% only considered TPS schools in their job search. When asked whether they preferred a certain school type, several teachers said that charters were the only choice. One teacher noted, “New Orleans is all charter now, so that is the only option,” even though there were a number of TPS districts near the city. Another teacher wanted to work in a TPS in New Orleans, but not in the suburbs, “so charters it is,” she said, given the lack of alternatives. The majority of teachers in New Orleans considered or applied to both public schools and charter schools (55%), with 40% indicating no strong preference for either sector, revealing a significant amount of fluidity between the sectors. Teachers may have resigned themselves to the fact that almost all schools are charter schools, or they may represent a new type of teacher, with greater mobility—always searching for a better opportunity—perhaps reflecting patterns of precarity in the general labor market (Kalleberg, 2018). Many teachers had cycled through positions at various charter schools, moving into and out of leadership positions and consulting jobs in education nonprofits.
Within this large charter sector, then, there was a nested form of segmentation. Although some segmentation existed across TPSs and charter schools in the metro area as a whole, we found parallel segmentation within the charter sector, whereby some charter schools incorporated features of the primary segment, typical in TPSs. There was a perceived hierarchy of schools. Across the interviews, teachers repeatedly sought out the same charter schools because of characteristics associated with the primary segment, such as unionization, retirement benefits, and work–life balance. However, this was even more pronounced among current teachers, who were either older or were reaching an age where they began to think about families, stability, health benefits, and saving money for retirement more seriously. These desired characteristics not only overlapped with traditional primary markets but also had distinct features. The “top schools” were mostly standalone charter schools that sometimes had a teachers’ union, used different pedagogical and disciplinary styles, had higher accountability grades, or had more diverse student bodies. Given that there were few openings, none of the teachers in our sample were hired in these schools, despite their attempts. In contrast, other schools were somewhat interchangeable, comprising a kind of secondary segment of the charter market.
Teachers seeking to make a switch within the charter sector viewed most other schools (i.e., the secondary market within the charter sector) to be similar in quality, working conditions, curriculum, and disciplinary approach, except for those in the top tier. For example, teachers most often attempted to leave or avoid charter schools that had a no-excuses model, including many CMOs, noting they were seeking “a more free discipline policy,” where students can self-regulate their behavior, and a climate that was “normal and sane,” less “frantic and manic” than other charter schools. Ten teachers made explicit reference to this. One teacher said finding a school that did not subscribe to “No Excuses discipline policies [was] very important to [her]”; another sought to move away from an “authoritarian discipline approach.” To stay in New Orleans, one teacher believed she had to be “resigned to the militant discipline styles of schools,” but was still trying to find a different environment. More than a quarter of New Orleans teachers contemplated leaving or did leave the sector for stretches of time because of “charter burn out,” expressing feelings of “never again” or “I can’t do this anymore.” However, many returned to the sector or never left, hoping their new job would be different.
Transitional Segmentation: Detroit
Detroit reflected many of the same patterns as San Antonio in terms of traditional segmentation, where charter schools were seen as less desirable, even by teachers who worked in them. Although teachers’ choice sets were more evenly distributed in Detroit, in terms of the types of schools they were considering—38% of Detroit teachers considered both TPSs and charter schools, 30% considered TPSs only, and 19% considered charter schools only—their qualitative responses revealed a stronger preference for TPSs (70% of teachers). These teachers said they were “prioritizing public schools instead of charter schools.” Even charter teachers who applied to both sectors typically preferred TPSs. Half of the current charter teachers in Detroit were seeking to move to TPSs, and some “really, really [didn’t] want to go to another charter school.” One said, I’d have to be very convinced that where I was going, was going to be 100% definitely better than the place that I’m in . . . I don’t want to work in a charter school, I don’t want to work in a private school, so there’s a very limited amount of actual possible positions I could take, and a lot of those are good jobs that people don’t leave so often.
He ultimately found a position in a TPS, but this was a common perception among teachers trying to exit the charter sector.
Teachers in Detroit, similar to San Antonio, were concerned with the secondary labor market features of the charter sector, such as the lack of predictable work hours and job security. One Detroit charter school teacher said, “Being an at-will employee in a charter school, what you say [in a meeting] could affect your evaluation . . . It could affect your job security.” Indeed, most teachers seeking to switch from a charter school to a TPS sought different forms of stability, in terms of management, salary, job security, and work hours. One Detroit teacher said she liked her new position in a TPS because “they pay well and they have a strong union.” Another teacher left a charter school to teach in a TPS for reasons that were “purely financial, in terms of security” and “being in the union,” which he believed would make it “harder for people to boss you around or take your job or kick you out.” Many Detroit teachers wanted to find “a lifer position,” or “someplace that I can make home,” while earning a living wage. Gaining tenure was one way to “put down roots,” allowing the teacher to “stay for a long time and become an anchor in that school” until retirement. Other teachers pursued stability as a form of “protection from prevailing political winds” and from being “at will.”
Teachers’ perceptions of the charter sector were somewhat of a paradox, in that there was a general sense that charter schools had high turnover and instability, with interviewees constantly describing concerns with teacher retention and the precarity of jobs, but this also created a general sense, similar to New Orleans, that jobs were always available because charter schools were always hiring. One teacher said, “I wasn’t worried about getting a job because I knew there was so much turnover and so many openings.” Detroit had a teacher shortage, and teachers noted that “every school is hiring,” and that it was a “buyer’s market,” favoring teachers. One charter teacher seeking a job in a TPS said, “Spoiler alert: charter schools are always desperate for teachers and have crazy high turnover.” Teachers believed they could always find a job in a charter school.
In Detroit, like San Antonio, the labor market was segmented in a traditional way, with TPSs comprising the primary segment and charters the secondary segment. However, unlike San Antonio, the charter sector in Detroit was not a small secondary segment and, therefore, competed with TPSs for market share with roughly a 50–50 split between TPSs and charter schools. One teacher said she was surprised by the “huge role of charter schools, how many there are.” She had “always told myself that I wouldn’t get myself into a charter school,” but when she attended a job fair, she said, “but half of the room in that job fair were charter schools.” Despite this, teachers often viewed charter schools as a secondary option, considering them when they did not receive callbacks from TPSs. One prospective teacher in Detroit realized “by mid-July” that she “wasn’t going to get into a public school because they wanted people with experience,” and only then began to consider charter schools. As charter schools expanded in Detroit, teachers were aware that they had to consider charters to maximize their chances of landing a position, but they largely still viewed charters as a secondary, less desirable segment of the labor market.
Further complicating the “traditional segmentation” model in Detroit was the finding that even though TPSs were the primary segment of the labor market, the central school district, DPS, had mixed status in the market. Whereas some perceived that it was hard to “get into” DPS, others simply ruled DPS out. Teachers who wanted to work in DPS noted that there seemed to be a lot of “politics involved” and an “in crowd” in the district that made it hard to obtain a position there. However, there were dozens of examples of teachers ruling out DPS altogether because they thought it was “unstable,” that the “job-search process right now is an absolute shit show,” and there was “some sort of power struggle going on.” DPS was, thus, usually not considered part of the primary segment, making the structure of segmentation more complex in Detroit.
The real primary segment in Detroit consisted of suburban school districts, or inner ring suburban school districts adjacent to DPS, where many teachers sought positions and applied year after year. One teacher said, “I’m always mostly focusing on the suburban schools. Just based on knowing people that work out there. It would be a little more stable and then hopefully I could make a little bit more [in salary].” For some teachers, they had always planned to work in a suburban school; others turned to suburban schools when they became burnt out working in the urban core. Many wanted to remain in Detroit but found few viable options. Suburban schools were, however, “very hard to get into” because they were seen as “world-class places to work,” as one charter school teacher noted.
Despite the large charter school market share in Detroit, unlike New Orleans, there was little evidence of segmentation within the charter sector. Instead, charter schools were often grouped together, with one or two exceptional schools—schools that had specialized programs, served a distinct neighborhood community, and either had teachers’ unions or were in the process of negotiating one. However, only a handful of teachers in Detroit who sought to leave the charter sector considered these schools; the majority still preferred TPSs, although the limited availability of jobs in desirable TPS districts reinforced segmentation. Teachers noted it would be the “same thing” if they were to switch schools within the charter sector, and that “every option kind of sucks for a different reason.” We can only speculate why teachers perceived less differentiation among charter schools in Detroit, but some possible explanations could be the policy and regulatory environment (i.e., types of charter schools authorized) or the large share of for-profit charter schools.
Mechanisms of Labor Market Segmentation
Above, we described the nature of segmentation in each site, through the perceptions of teachers, as well as what motivated teachers to switch or attempt to switch sectors. Next, we examine the drivers of segmentation through teachers’ understanding of the barriers that kept them in a particular segment of the labor market. In each city, there was more internal job switching within the sectors than across them. This limited crossover can be attributed to structural barriers in the labor market as well as teachers’ personal barriers, shaped by perceptions, experiences, limited knowledge, and ideological and political beliefs.
Structural Barriers
There were several structural barriers—policies, norms, and conditions in the market beyond teachers’ control—that limited teachers’ ability to switch sectors. In San Antonio, 11% of teachers described structural barriers that prevented movement across sectors, and 12% in New Orleans, and 19% in Detroit did so. Below, we describe these structural barriers.
Salary
We find that wage differentials between sectors, especially in San Antonio, were “huge concerns” that facilitated market segmentation. One special education teacher in San Antonio with 4 years of experience turned down an offer from a CMO because “the pay would have been $20,000 less than what I’m making now . . . and I’m making a little over $50,000.” Although teachers did not report such large wage gaps in other sites, salary differences between sectors were still critical to teachers’ decisions. In Detroit’s transitional market, salaries across sectors were more variable. Some teachers considered charter salaries to be “very bad,” whereas others sought out charter schools because they “offered the most competitive pay.” One Detroit teacher ruled out TPSs altogether because he was unwilling to take a pay cut. Another Detroit teacher who considered leaving the charter sector opted to stay after realizing the pay in both sectors “matches up well.” Teachers in New Orleans also found salary to be comparable across sectors, having less influence on job decisions. New Orleans teachers, perhaps because they were generally younger, were less concerned with salary than in the other sites. If they discussed salary, it “wasn’t a deciding factor,” or they just noted that it was “reasonable.”
Differences in how TPSs and charter schools reported salaries also contributed to segmentation. Teachers were more likely to access updated information on salaries and benefits for TPSs, whereas this information was less transparent in the charter sector. Several teachers in Detroit and New Orleans used informal sites to get information on charter school salaries, because “charter schools do not publish the salary schedules, which makes it difficult to go and interview for positions. You’re not knowing if it’s a lateral move or step down.” Other teachers preferred the salary predictability in TPSs, even if the pay was lower. One Detroit teacher said, I know what is going to happen with my salary now. I know in a couple years how much I’ll make . . . In a charter school, it just didn’t have that. That’s something that I was really looking for.
Research suggests that salary is important to teachers (Figlio & Kenny, 2007; Kolbe & Strunk, 2012; Little & Bartlett, 2010); however, uncertainty and lack of information about salary led some teachers to exclude charter schools from consideration.
Other Compensation Benefits
Beyond salary, other forms of compensation or benefits also drove market segmentation. Teachers across the three sites were drawn to TPSs “mostly for the benefits, the medical, the retirement” and believed TPSs offered fairer compensation of their time and labor. Specifically, Detroit teachers noted that public schools “pay you for all the extra things that they ask you to do, like after-school tutoring,” whereas “at the charter school, they just asked for volunteers or just told you you had to do it.” Retirement benefits also drove labor market segmentation. New Orleans teachers who prioritized retirement benefits were “disappointed that the charters don’t pay into the retirement system.” Older veteran teachers, in particular, who had already contributed to the state retirement system in New Orleans, or newer teachers who just prioritized retirement benefits, felt they had few options within the charter sector. One New Orleans teacher was only considering TPSs because, in the charter sector, “you’re not vested . . . you’re not under that one system, where you can move from school to school to school . . . and for me, that was a biggie.” Prospective teachers in San Antonio who applied to both charter schools and TPSs also believed TPSs had more attractive retirement benefits.
Teachers’ preferences for tenure and job security were linked to unions and the TPS sector across all three sites, which drew some charter teachers to the TPS sector. In San Antonio, teachers entering TPSs assumed they would be eligible for “continuing” contracts, which, for teachers in good standing with the district, do not have to be renewed annually. In Detroit, several teachers only applied to TPSs because “charter schools are not part of the Michigan teachers’ pension system and the Michigan teachers’ union.” Similarly, some teachers in New Orleans ruled out charters because they “do not allow a teachers union.” A handful of charter schools in New Orleans had recently organized or attempted to form a union; yet, most charter schools do not have collective bargaining agreements (Olberg & Podgursky, 2011) or offer tenure or stability. Teachers who sought these features were limited to the public sector.
Certification and Portability
Teachers in New Orleans and Detroit found their teaching experience to be less portable when they attempted to switch to TPSs. In New Orleans, this was because charter schools did not require teachers to be certified, but TPSs did. In Detroit, teachers found themselves “stuck” in charter schools due to career-ladder policies in TPS districts that significantly downgraded their years of experience. This led teachers to rule out or “turn away from” TPSs because “you start at level 0 coming in.” One Detroit teacher observed, Salary is a big factor, only because I taught for over 10 years and I have that experience and I have my Master’s degree and my reading specialist certification, as well . . . I looked for public-school positions, but unfortunately, many of them, they weren’t able to start me past a certain step . . . I would still have to start at either step one or step three.
Although charter school teachers in Detroit attempted to negotiate their salaries in TPSs based on their years of experience, they were often told “we can’t do anything for you.” Wage-setting policies and collective bargaining agreements within TPSs were structural barriers that encouraged segmentation by preventing some teachers from exiting the charter sector.
Timing of Search
The timing of job searches and hiring processes varied across sites and across sector, which created structural barriers to cross-sector mobility. In San Antonio, most teachers began searching online for jobs in January or February and applied to jobs and attended job fairs later in the spring. Some teachers were offered a job before the end of the school year, but typically only in charter schools, which had quicker turnaround. As one TPS teacher said, which captures much of the sentiments regarding timing in the TPS sector, “I had a lot more people contact me once the school year was actually over so the ones that I submitted pretty early on, there was a significant wait.” In Detroit, teachers applied earlier to charter schools (January or February), and some were hired in March or April, but hiring continued until the next school year began. TPS teachers mostly applied in March or April (when most of the job fairs also occurred), and some did not receive offers until August. Similarly, in New Orleans, some teachers began applying as early as January and received offers soon after, though there was a big charter school job fair in March and charter hiring continued through the summer. TPSs seemed to hire later, as they had to wait for teachers to notify and to sort transfers. Across sites, it could be challenging for teachers to consider jobs in both sectors with the varying timelines.
Personal Barriers: Teachers Preferences for Particular Working Conditions
Teachers held strong preferences about where they wanted to work. At times, these preferences were so fixed, they limited teachers’ options. These unyielding preferences were often shaped by teachers’ personal experiences and limited knowledge about each sector. Personal barriers played a larger role in Detroit and San Antonio, which had stronger elements of traditional segmentation. In Detroit, 43% of teachers described personal barriers that prevented cross-sector mobility and 24% of San Antonio teachers did, compared with 12% in New Orleans.
Previous Experience as Personal Barrier
Negative experiences working in one sector often led teachers to develop a blanket perspective of that sector. This was particularly true in Detroit and San Antonio, and to a lesser extent in New Orleans’s nested market, where teachers still sought out jobs in particular charter schools, despite negative experiences in the sector overall. In San Antonio, teachers could rule out an entire sector based on one “bad experience working in [a] charter.” In Detroit, too, teachers’ prior experiences in charters drove them to seek jobs in TPSs. One experienced Detroit teacher attributed her negative experience at a charter school to “discipline and poor administration” and believed charters were “a dumping ground for the worst kids that nobody else will take in a public school.” Detroit teachers recounted poor working conditions where “having so many expectations put on us” and a high workload led to “a revolving door of teachers.” Another teacher had “felt really secure” at a charter school, after working there for 12 years, “like there was job security.” Then, the management changed, and almost all teachers were fired. As a result, teachers, like her, who had experienced instability in charter schools sought jobs in the TPS sector so they could “count on this school being there for many, many years.” Indeed, half of Detroit charter school teachers strongly preferred TPSs.
Other teachers often recounted negative experiences they had heard about from teachers in their social networks, secondhand experiences that sometimes dictated their decisions. One Detroit teacher did not apply to charter schools because her friend had been “absolutely miserable” in a charter school. She elaborated on what her friend had told her: “They felt like their pay was really bad. They felt like the administration was not supportive of them . . . they felt like they were being treated like slaves.” Yet, we also find that teachers’ views of working in the charter sector changed with firsthand experience. One teacher in Detroit recalled, Before I took my first teaching job, I heard a lot of things about charter schools and how they didn’t have certified teachers, and how they were just terrible for students, but after working in a charter school, it wasn’t like that.
However, for many teachers, their own experiences or those of their friends, strongly biased them toward or away from a sector.
Limited Sector Experience or Knowledge
Although teachers’ negative experiences in one sector had a strong impact on their preferences for school type, we also find that a lack of experience, or limited knowledge of the secondary market constrained crossover between sectors. This was most common among prospective and early career teachers in San Antonio and, to some extent, in Detroit. Prospective teachers admitted their lack of knowledge or “unfamiliarity” about the charter, or secondary, market in San Antonio. One teacher said, “I didn’t know enough about charter schools or private schools,” which led her to “steer towards what was more familiar to me,” which were TPSs. Teachers who saw themselves as “a product of public schools” felt connected to the public school districts and “had no other inclination to teach anywhere else.” Even teachers affiliated with Teach for America (TFA) in San Antonio, which had strong organizational ties to charter schools, resisted charter schools due to minimal knowledge: I don’t know a whole lot about charter schools, but they have a different way of operating and they expect a lot more out of their teachers as far as their extra time . . . Every Saturday they have to work, and they have a lot of extra obligations. I kind of think they’re an experiment . . . like, “Let’s try these innovative things.” . . . I just didn’t know a lot about it.
Teachers expressed similar notions in Detroit, but on a lesser scale. Detroit teachers had wider networks, reaching across charter and public schools. Therefore, they were more familiar with both sectors. Given the large charter market share, some teachers in New Orleans were only familiar with the charter sector. As one teacher said, “Charters is all I know right now.” The experiences in San Antonio and New Orleans indicate that a large imbalance between the primary and secondary sectors helps maintain segmentation because the knowledge and experience are so biased toward the dominant sector.
Structural factors, such as the decentralized nature of the charter segment in Detroit and New Orleans, made it more difficult for teachers to navigate in the job search, despite their efforts to access knowledge. With the constant churn of CMOs and new charters emerging in Detroit, teachers felt uncertainty about the sector. As one teacher noted, “so many charter schools, they are just starting out, and all of them are iffy.” Another said, “everything’s so fragmented so you don’t know which charter school is a good fit, which one isn’t.” The job search process raised uncertainty for teachers, who noted, “I don’t know what’s out there. I don’t know what management companies are good. I don’t know what charter schools are good.” The Detroit charter sector had many schools and organizations, and the lack of a centralized way to get information on each school created challenges for teachers searching for the right fit.
Teachers’ uncertainty and lack of knowledge about charter schools decreased the longer they remained in the job market. In San Antonio, though “bad press” or “negative feedback online” often dissuaded teachers in the initial stages of the job search, teachers broadened their job search strategies, accessed more reliable sources of information, and tapped into their networks as the job search window narrowed and they became more desperate to find a position.
Teachers’ unfamiliarity with the charter sector in Detroit and San Antonio was shaped, in part, by their teacher preparation programs. In both locations, teachers expressed that traditional programs tended to offer student-teaching placements in different districts to expose prospective teachers to a variety of school types, except in charter schools. In addition, a few teachers noted, particularly in Detroit, that they “never got anything but negativity” about charter schools from their preparation programs, making them question entering that sector. In contrast, teachers earning alternative certification through programs such as TFA gained greater exposure to the charter market and were connected to those schools for placements.
The influence of teacher preparation programs on segmentation differed in New Orleans. Traditional preparation programs were more likely to bring charter school representatives into their students’ classes or to career events. One teacher explained, “There were a few [charters] that came to visit our university as a part of our curriculum. They were just allowing us to have that conversation with different kinds of schools.” Traditional preparation programs in New Orleans also promoted the charter school job fair. At least one program offered student-teaching placements in both charter schools and TPSs, a departure from what we saw in other locations. The dramatic shift in the primary market in New Orleans likely encouraged traditional programs to include charters to meet the needs of their job-seeking students.
Ideological Barriers
Our findings support previous research that workers select jobs that are aligned with certain organizational attributes, such as sector mission and values (Cable & Judge, 1996). In Detroit and San Antonio, especially, teachers excluded charters when the perceived values of the charter sector did not align to teachers’ attitudes, ideologies, and philosophies of education. In Detroit, 27% of teachers reported ideological barriers, and TPS teachers more often reported ideological barriers (58%) than charter teachers (5%). In San Antonio, TPS teachers were the only ones reporting ideological barriers (14%); no charter school teachers did. In New Orleans, too, 18% of TPS teachers reported ideological barriers, whereas no charter school teachers did. Although one teacher in Detroit considered charters the “best of both worlds,” this was a rare view. Rather, teachers held strong beliefs about each sector, which, in turn, reinforced market segmentation. Even when teachers were well informed about the charter sector and acknowledged that some “are doing a fantastic job,” teachers still excluded charters based on deep, personal connections or “loyalties” to the TPS sector, noting “public education is the way I was educated” or “my heart and soul lie in that environment.”
In Detroit and San Antonio, many TPS teachers perceived charters as institutions that were in conflict with TPSs, advocating “for the de-funding and abolishment of public schools.” Some teachers preferred TPSs because they had “fundamental issues” with the mission of charters, and especially for-profit charters, which they believed “[took] from the kids that need it the most.” Having observed the charter market evolve in Detroit, one teacher described charters as “a cancer on the public school system” that were “all about profits.” These sentiments were also core to teachers’ values about “equality” and public education, and their “vision for education in America.” For charter school teachers, although half preferred TPSs, this seemed to be driven by their prior experiences in charters (40%) rather than ideological barriers (5%).
There was less evidence of overt preferences for school type in New Orleans than the other two settings. Indeed, 40% of teachers in New Orleans had no strong preference for school type, compared with 11% in San Antonio and Detroit. Instead, in New Orleans, charter schools seemed to be the default option, the comfort zone, or perhaps they stayed due to inertia. However, many New Orleans teachers did subscribe to ideologies around race, equity, and education that deeply shaped the kind of school environment in which they wanted to work, particularly as it related to using alternative approaches to discipline and curriculum. Furthermore, a handful of teachers in New Orleans did have strong ideological opposition to “corporatized education” via charters or the “charter experiment,” even if that did not prevent them from working in the charter school sector.
Teachers generally did not hold strong beliefs against TPSs in San Antonio or New Orleans. In Detroit, however, poor facilities, large class sizes, and the threat of teachers’ benefits “getting cut or [the costs] going up” lessened teachers desire to work in DPS, but not in TPSs overall. Some teachers believed that they would have greater autonomy in charter schools, which led them to remain in the sector. For example, teachers seeking “more discretion” on how they teach and “doing new interesting things and not having to be a part of this big bureaucracy” made job switches within the charter sector, rather than consider TPSs. As illustrated, teachers’ value system and ideologies influenced their job decisions. Many teachers did not want to work in an organizational environment they felt were “against [their] belief system[s],” which created ideological barriers and reinforced segmentation in some cases.
Overall, these three drivers of segmentation operated differently in each site, creating different types of segmentation. In Detroit’s transitional market, with its 50–50 market share between charters and TPSs, we found that features of the primary sector (i.e., salary/compensation, timing, and certification policies) contributed to greater structural barriers (19%) in Detroit than in other sites. Although 70% of Detroit teachers preferred characteristics of TPSs and, in particular, schools in Detroit’s inner ring suburban school districts, a higher number of available jobs were in charter schools, which led teachers to accept offers in charter schools out of desperation. Greater knowledge of or work experiences in the charter sector exposed teachers to features of the charter sector that ultimately served as personal (43%) and ideological (30%) barriers in Detroit. Structural barriers were less restrictive in San Antonio’s traditional segmented market (11%) and New Orleans’ nested market (12%), perhaps because each site held a majority share of TPSs and charters, respectively. In other words, our findings suggest the size of the sector influences the types of barriers associated with the characteristics of segmentation we observed. Personal and ideological barriers were also linked to the type of segmentation we identified in San Antonio and New Orleans. Among San Antonio’s prospective teachers, for example, limited knowledge of the charter sector produced personal (26%) and ideological barriers (22%) that reinforced traditional segmentation in San Antonio. Teachers in New Orleans, with its nested market, were less biased toward a particular sector (40%) and experienced fewer barriers. Instead, they were more concerned with finding schools with characteristics of the traditional primary market or schools that aligned with their personal beliefs in either the charter or TPS sector. However, the availability of jobs in schools that met these criteria was limited, and most teachers ended up switching between schools with similar characteristics.
Discussion
By following teachers during their job searches, this article illuminates aspects of teacher decision-making in districts with a significant charter school sector. Overall, we find evidence of segmentation in the teacher labor market, as in previous studies (Cannata, 2011; Gulosino & Ni, 2018). Particularly, our findings confirm that charters were indeed a secondary segment of the labor market and, due to features of this sector (i.e., instability, less than ideal working conditions, lower salary), teachers primarily sought out charter schools when charters were the only option, as in New Orleans, or when teachers became desperate in their job search and had few other options. We also identify variation in the nature of this segmentation, by uncovering underlying mechanisms of segmentation and internal or within-sector segmentation, where teachers categorize their job choices into upper and lower tiers (Piore, 1972). Although prior research has documented teacher labor market segmentation using quantitative methods, we know little about why segmentation occurs, and whether it is due to teachers’ disinterest or lack of success in switching sectors. We find that structural policies within each sector and teachers’ values and ideological beliefs can create barriers to mobility and reinforce segmentation.
Our findings yielded a more nuanced framework for classifying and describing segmentation: with San Antonio representing the traditional form of labor market segmentation; New Orleans representing a nested form of segmentation, where some schools in the charter sector begin to mimic features typical of the primary TPS sector; and Detroit representing a transitional market, where traditional patterns of segmentation are still strong, but the primary segment in terms of market share is increasingly the charter sector. These findings help researchers understand how market segmentation can play out very differently across contexts.
New Orleans’s nested segmentation suggests that as the charter sector grows and differentiates, teachers may distinguish more between schools within a sector than across sectors. Yet, we see little evidence of nested segmentation occurring in Detroit’s transitional market, although this might change as the charter sector expands and matures. Many charter teachers in Detroit sought jobs in the TPS sector, but ultimately felt trapped in charter schools. In this sense, Detroit teachers’ preferences aligned with the traditional patterns of segmentation in San Antonio, but the reality of the labor market was more like New Orleans, given job availability in the charter sector. If Detroit’s labor market is “in transition,” moving toward greater charter school market share, we may observe greater differentiation among charter schools in terms of quality and working conditions and less divisions between sectors. However, given the policy context in Detroit, with high rates of for-profit charter school operators and low performance generally, it is unclear whether expansion of charter schools in Detroit will also yield the type of differentiation or “nesting” we observe in New Orleans. In fact, depending on the types of policies or regulations, we could see a shift toward more of a traditional segmentation model.
The range of options in the local environment interacted with teachers’ preferences. In San Antonio’s traditionally segmented market, where structural factors (e.g., salary, certification requirements) were more transparent, teachers sought a good “fit,” relationship with the principal, and other psychological factors. However, although they prioritized these aspects, teachers in San Antonio often did not have many options, and some did not find a position. Many teachers there took a position out of desperation (i.e., it was the only job they were offered), so they did not have the opportunity to weigh the features of multiple offers. Similarly, in Detroit’s transitional market, teachers weighed a lot of factors (salary, fit, culture, leadership, etc.), but only half of all teachers received multiple offers, and this was far more common in the charter sector than the TPS sector. However, for teachers with multiple offers, they felt that most of their options were similar, and few offered a step up from their current position. This evidence suggests that segmentation, and the characteristics associated with the primary and secondary markets, drives teachers’ job decisions more than the competitive effects from charter school entry.
A further driver of segmentation, especially as the concentration of charters increases, is the way that job markets intersect with race, age, and experience. Although we did not find consistent patterns here, sufficient to warrant detailed discussion in the findings, several teachers noted these issues and, to highlight their perspectives, we include them in the discussion. Among older teachers and teachers of color, there was a sense that they were either unwelcome in the charter market or that it did not provide the benefits and culture they desired and were accustomed to. In places such as New Orleans, for example, this meant that teachers, whose main priority was continued payment into the teacher retirement system, were locked out of the majority of schools in the city (Lincove et al., 2018), and few of the most veteran teachers in San Antonio were able to find a new position. Relatedly, both younger and older teachers, White and Black, perceived that charter schools preferred and were staffed by predominantly young, White, and inexperienced teachers. Indeed, prior research in New Orleans and elsewhere suggests that there are racialized conceptions of “talented” teachers and leaders (Henry & Dixson, 2016; Tompkins, 2015), and that reforms in urban contexts have often displaced Black teachers (White, 2016). In a recent study of charter segmentation, teachers of color demonstrated similar structural moves within the charter sector, but were largely pushed out by sociocultural conditions that exacerbated teacher turnover and teacher dissatisfaction (White, 2016). In addition, the lack of job security and high workload, combined with fewer benefits, at most charters made it near impossible for teachers with families or other outside school obligations to truly consider jobs in charter schools, or they would have to take those jobs at high personal cost.
Our qualitative approach also revealed how teachers’ values and ideologies shaped segmentation and decisions about where to work. Consistent with theories on work values and person–organization fit (Cable & Judge, 1996), teachers in the traditional and transitional markets of Detroit and San Antonio held strong anticharter views, shaped either by their experiences in the sector or, in some cases, misconceptions about charter schools, which did not align with their ideals of public education. Detroit TPS teachers had higher rates of ideological barriers to working in charter schools than in the other sites, which was a mechanism that reinforced traditional segmentation. This is important because the stereotyping of an entire sector has important implications for teachers’ job decisions and, potentially, for equity, because charter schools tend to serve large numbers of students of color and low-income students in urban areas.
This study also reveals teacher-sorting mechanisms in contexts with expansive choice policy that play into market segmentation (D’Amico et al., 2017; Kalogrides, Loeb, & Béteille, 2013). Although our focus was on how teachers considered school type (charter school or TPS), our findings also confirm prior research that shows that teachers are especially responsive to school characteristics (i.e., working conditions, school culture, and school leadership; Horng, 2009; Johnson, Kraft, & Papay, 2012; White, 2016), which explains why teachers make both within-sector or cross-sector switches. For example, in Detroit and San Antonio, the most desirable locations to work, the schools considered the “upper tier,” were often those located in suburban areas surrounding the cities. Consistent with typical patterns of teacher mobility (Adamson & Darling-Hammond, 2012; Freedman & Appleman, 2009; Ingersoll & Merill, 2017; Johnson et al., 2012; Olsen & Anderson, 2007), we see that teachers in San Antonio and Detroit tended to work in a lower performing, high-needs urban school for a while, before moving, or seeking to move, to schools with better salaries, more resources, opportunities for advancement, and greater stability. In a segmented labor market, charter schools can, thus, perpetuate a cycle of high turnover when teachers enter the secondary sector because of limited options, but then move into more desirable positions in the primary sector. This is similar to the “shifting” and “drifting” phenomena identified in the TPS sector, where many teachers begin their careers in urban schools, but shift to nonurban schools after gaining experience (Freedman & Appleman, 2009; Olsen & Anderson, 2007). In Detroit and San Antonio, teachers who initially desired to work in upper tier schools later broadened their searches to include lower tier schools or those in the secondary segment, out of desperation. As a result, teachers traded off certain working conditions by reconfiguring the sets of schools they considered. A significant consequence of this type of mobility exacerbates turnover and organizational instability in schools.
Yet, there were teachers in San Antonio and Detroit who remained committed to working in the central city, despite poor working conditions. They sought jobs that might offer more stability, while still serving low-income students, but had a hard time finding such positions. In New Orleans, almost all schools served large numbers of students of color and low-income students, so it was almost a “given,” teachers would work with these populations, with just a few exceptions. However, New Orleans’ nested market revealed an “upper tier” that consisted of high-performing standalone charter schools that were diverse by design or selective.
The findings from the study also raise concerns about the unintended consequences of “going to scale” in charter school reform. When charter schools comprise a small secondary segment of the labor market, as they often do in cases of traditional labor market segmentation, they may be able to find teachers who can tolerate high turnover, fewer job protections for teachers, and the lack of pensions or strong retirement benefits, by finding teachers who are less experienced (Cannata & Penaloza, 2012). However, when the charter sector becomes the “primary” segment of the labor market in size, but retains the characteristics of a secondary segment, as it does in Detroit’s transitional market and to a large extent New Orleans’s nested market, it is unclear what the implications are for teachers and students. With greater instability throughout the sector, and a lack of protection for teachers, teacher retention and sustainability may become increasingly challenging, particularly as teachers’ life circumstances change. Furthermore, this instability may have impacts on students and families, with some evidence that turnover decreases student achievement, especially for students of color (Ronfeldt, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2013).
Teachers in the charter sector in New Orleans and Detroit, experiencing nested and transitional segmentation, respectively, tolerated a high level of mobility and turnover. This acceptance of mobility could be explained by contemporary generational theories of younger workers and their tendency to reject permanence (McGinnis Johnson & Ng, 2016; Walker, 2009). When charters comprise the majority of schools, however, there can be secondary segmentation, where a small number of schools represent ideal teaching environments, but have very few job openings, as we see in the case of nested segmentation. The result is that across the other, lower tier schools, there appeared to be less job satisfaction, which led to high turnover and created a pool of teachers who were constantly searching. Here then, job hopping is not just a virtue of the new generational preference for frequent change but also about teachers who became deeply unhappy in their current job, sought a position that was the right fit, but rarely found it. As a result, teachers frequently settled in positions that went against their preferences, in the hope that the new position would be better than the last. This was true across experience levels, not just for first-year teachers who, when desperate, might “settle” to find their first job.
This study offers several implications for teacher-related policies. By understanding why teachers choose to switch sectors, district and CMO leaders can develop policies to better support principals in creating work environments reflective of teachers’ needs. For example, policies that minimize administrative and teacher turnover in charter schools could create greater stability for students and help to attract or retain teachers. Other opportunities for policy and practice include restructuring school leadership to reflect shared or distributive forms of leadership, promoting cultural practices and discipline approaches in schools that emphasize teacher and student diversity, and developing more transparent practices with regard to salary and benefits that lead to informed decisions about where to work.
In addition, our findings suggest that frequently public schools and charter schools are not directly competing for teachers and, therefore, are not driven to offer benefits that might recruit and retain the best teachers or alter policies that open up the sector to a more diverse teaching pool. Instead, teachers typically prefer one sector over the other, and there is limited mobility across the sectors. Several policy initiatives could address the structural barriers that teachers face when trying to switch sectors, particularly within TPSs. TPSs can amend bargaining agreements or salary schedules to recognize teachers’ years of experience from other sectors. Such a step could potentially increase the pool of candidates applying for jobs, especially in contexts, such as Detroit, that face teacher shortages or chronic teacher turnover. There were some efforts in New Orleans and Detroit to unionize charter schools; therefore, offering teachers stronger job protections may have implications for teacher recruitment and retention, including attracting teachers from TPSs, leading to greater stability in the charter sector.
Certification policies differ across state policy contexts, but policymakers may want to consider how allowing charter schools to hire teachers without certification can reinforce segmentation, because these teachers will be unable to switch easily between charter school and TPS sectors. Indeed, eight teachers in our New Orleans sample were uncertified and could only consider charter schools. States might consider uniform certification policies to equalize access to all types of public schools or allow for equivalent status for teachers who have experience and have demonstrated effectiveness but do not have certification. This would expand options for teachers, allowing them to consider both TPSs and charter schools. Consistent certification requirements across sectors may have implications for equity. Specifically, schools with higher number of uncertified or underprepared teachers are disproportionately hired in low-income schools serving students of color (Adamson & Darling-Hammond, 2012; Borman & Dowling, 2008). Other policies could encourage more cooperation between sectors. For example, there was a centralized list of jobs in Detroit, including both charter schools and TPSs. In New Orleans, there are efforts to create a centralized site for teaching positions, and in San Antonio, as the district creates more in-district charters, perhaps there will be greater opportunity to collaborate and jointly recruit teachers, which might reduce segmentation.
There are also implications for teacher preparation programs, which might have the most impact on ideological barriers to cross-sector moves. For prospective teachers in Detroit, learning that more than half of schools were charter schools, and that most jobs available to them were in that sector, came as a surprise, and teachers adjusted their job searches when they could not find a position in TPSs. Teacher preparation programs could, given the reality of the labor markets in some large urban areas, foster partnerships with charter schools to expose student teachers to diverse options in the job market (Cannata, 2011). Programs could discuss the actual differences in working conditions, salaries, and climate between charter and TPSs, so that if teachers prefer one sector over another, their preferences are informed ones.
However, for many teachers, their inability to find a good fit reflects challenges in school choice markets in general. Choice is only beneficial to the extent that there are high-quality and diverse options for both families and teachers. Therefore, our work has implications for charter authorizers to ensure that their schools offer something truly innovative, and that there is variation in the offerings in a given area, and for policymakers generally to improve resources in high-poverty schools, and ensure teachers earn sufficient salaries and have some job stability.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Susan Moore Johnson, Judith Warren Little, Marisa Cannata, Chris Torres, and Lois Weis for their feedback on earlier instruments, drafts, and presentations. The authors also thank Jennifer Jendrzey and Alison Simister for research assistance. Data collection and analysis for this project were funded by the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. This project was also funded partially funded by The University of Texas at Austin Office of the Vice President for Research through the VPR Research and Creative Grant Program, and by The University of Texas at Austin College of Education Grants Program. We also want to acknowledge infrastructure support from the Population Research Center at The University of Texas, supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD042849).
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project was partially funded by The University of Texas at Austin Office of the Vice President for Research through the VPR Research and Creative Grant Program and by The University of Texas at Austin College of Education Grants Program. This project was also supported by the infrastructure support from the Population Research Center at The University of Texas, supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD042849).