Sorting the Principal Pipeline: Subject-Area Pathways and Career Mobility in School Leadership

Despite extensive research on school leadership pipelines, less is known about how educators’ full career trajectories shape entry into the principalship. Using longitudinal administrative data from Texas spanning nearly three decades, this study follows more than one million educators and estimates discrete-time hazard models to examine transitions into school leadership. Results indicate that educators who become principals tend to follow relatively direct pathways into leadership roles. Subject-area specialization also shapes these pathways: Educators in English language arts; social studies; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; and elementary education are more likely to become principals than those in fields such as special education and the arts, highlighting how the principal pipeline operates as a career mobility sorting system shaping the composition of school leadership.