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Supporting social-emotional development, such as by fostering experiences of belonging and promoting sharing and productive communication, has long been part of preschool and elementary school programs. Now, high schools increasingly are focused on social-emotional development, too. The most common instruments used to measure social-emotional development are student surveys, in which adolescents report their experiences, behaviors, and attitudes related to school. Can these surveys reveal which high schools best support social-emotional development? And does attending such a school improve students' long-term outcomes? This study examines results from a detailed annual survey about social-emotional development and school climate administered to students in the Chicago Public Schools. Through value-added analysis, the authors identify individual high schools' impacts on 9th-grade students' social-emotional development and test scores. They then trace the effects of attending a school that excels along each of these dimensions on short-term outcomes, such as absenteeism and school-based arrests, as well as on longer-term outcomes, like high-school graduation and college enrollment. The analysis confirms that some schools are better at supporting students' social-emotional development than others. Schools that promote social well-being have larger effects on students' attendance and behavioral infractions, while those that improve work habits have larger effects on academic performance. The authors also calculate each school's value-added to student test scores and then look to see how well these measures predict student success. Compared to test-score value-added, social-emotional value-added is far more predictive of the behaviors that support student success, such as having fewer absences and being on-track to graduate. And it is more predictive of positive longer-run outcomes as well, such as graduating from high school and enrolling in a four-year college. These results show that students' own assessments of their social well-being and work habits provide valuable information about their development. They also show that these surveys can be used alongside traditional indicators like test scores to provide a more complete picture of how schools prepare students for the future. This analysis represents an important early step toward understanding how schools influence the social-emotional development of adolescents, how that can be measured, and how this can be useful for policy.

Purpose: Urban school districts often face challenges in filling principal vacancies with effective leaders, especially in high-needs schools. Prospective principals’ engagement with the job application process may contribute to these challenges. The goal of this study is to better understand the job search strategies and behaviors of prospective principals and how their approaches might contribute to leadership staffing challenges in high-needs schools. Research Design and Methods: We employ a convergent mixed-methods design that draws on data from two urban school systems. We pair analysis of interviews of 36 principals who have recently navigated the districts’ hiring systems with multiple years of applications and other administrative data provided by the two districts. We explored how patterns and themes that emerged from each data source were confirmed or disconfirmed with the other source. Findings: Guided by a job-search model, our analysis uncovers three main findings. First, the typical principal applicant conducted a targeted rather than a wide search, reflecting multiple strategies, preferences, and relational factors. Second, elementary educators showed a strong propensity to apply to the same grade level. Third, leaders applied to schools serving larger proportions of historically marginalized students at similar rates as other schools, reflecting their motivations to work with underserved students. Implications for Research and Practice: Considerations informing prospective principals’ job searches are multifaceted. High-needs schools are desirable to many principal candidates. Identifying and strategically recruiting candidates with preferences for working in such schools can be a strategy for districts seeking to overcome challenges in filling principal vacancies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]