What Do Educator Job Applications Reveal About Preferences for Schools?

Educator labor markets vary considerably within and across school districts, yet direct evidence of how prospective educators weigh school characteristics when making job decisions is limited. Using applicant tracking data from 19 U.S. school districts, we analyze two distinct forms of applicant choice: initial application decisions to single-school job postings and explicit school preference indicators within multi-school job postings. We find that single-school postings in districts serving higher proportions of historically disadvantaged students receive fewer applications, but that this pattern does not hold across schools within a district. In our analysis of applicants’ choices across schools associated with the same job posting, we find applicants tend to indicate a good deal of flexibility regarding their willingness to work in different schools. However, schools with higher percentages of White students and schools in higher-income neighborhoods were significantly more likely to be marked as preferred. We also find evidence of preference heterogeneity: Asian and Black applicants are significantly more likely than White applicants to indicate a preference for working in schools located in lower-income neighborhoods, serving higher percentages of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL), and higher percentages of Black students.