Leadership continuity and educational performance in the American states

We use an original data base of state leadership to address the following question: Does continuity of state educational leaders promote state educational performance? To answer that question we analyze state performance since the early 1990s on the National Assessment of Educational Progress reading and math exams for 4th and 8th graders. We account for variation in those measures by examining rates of turnover among chief state school officers and on state boards of education. Overall, our results show that low turnover among state education leaders, especially chief state school officers, is associated with higher performance among several different student groups. Those positives are not ever lasting, however, because the benefits of low turnover decline if leaders remain in office too long. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, April 3-6, 2008, Chicago. We thank K.C. Tydgat and Meghan Dunne for great research assistance, and the Spencer Foundation for financial support. We are also grateful for the valuable archival assistance we received from David Kysilko at the National Association of State Boards of Education, Kathy Christie at the Education Commission of the States, and Jeremy Naidus and John Suter at the State Archives of New York. This paper is a draft work in progress, and we welcome feedback.