Thought Leadership

Teacher quality is one of the most important factors influencing a student’s educational outcomes, yet scant research has examined teacher hiring and quality in Christian schools. In this qualitative work, we thematically analyze interviews about Christian schools’ teacher hiring practices with a diverse group of 12 leaders from 10 member schools in the Association of Christian Schools International. We find that these 10 schools generally follow a standard hiring process. The qualifications they seek in teachers could be arranged into a pyramid, where the base—the most fundamental quality—is demonstration of authentic Christian faith. After faith, school leaders desired teachers to demonstrate virtue and to be a good “fit” for their school culture; at the tip of the pyramid is the category of professional and pedagogical skills. While there was some heterogeneity in the top three tiers among school leaders, all agreed on the importance of Christian school teachers having “a heart for Christ and a heart for kids.”

Johnson, A., Djita, R. R., & Swaner, Lynn E. (2024). Christian School Leaders’ Perspectives on Identifying and Hiring High-Quality Teachers. ACSI Working Paper: 2024-01. Retrieved from https://www.acsi.org/docs/default-source/research-member/wp2024-01.pdf?sfvrsn=ec878051_4

Prior scholarship has conceptualized Sabbath-keeping practices as a formative spiritual discipline in Christian schools (Bass, 2005; Dykstra, 2005) and one study connected Sabbath-keeping to lower levels of teacher burnout among Christian school teachers (Cheng et al., 2023). However, little is known about the relationship between Sabbath-keeping policies in Christian schools and teachers’ religious practices, the subject of this study. We analyze a sample of 982 teachers from the Association of Christian Schools International’s (ACSI) cross-sectional Flourishing Faith Index (FFI) pilot study data. We find that there is a positive association between Sabbath-keeping policies and teachers’ spiritual practices and teachers’ perception of administrative support. Specifically, teachers in schools with Sabbath-keeping policies were more likely to report engaging in Scripture memorization, attending religious services with greater frequency, and feeling that administrators in their schools supported their personal spiritual growth. We conclude with a discussion about Sabbath-keeping policies and subsequent research about teachers’ religious practices in Christian schools.

Lee, M. H., & Djita, R. R. (2024). Sabbath-Keeping in Private Christian Schools. ACSI Working Paper: 2024-02. Retrieved from https://www.acsi.org/docs/default-source/research-member/wp2024-02.pdf?sfvrsn=4ce80feb_4

Parents play an important role in shaping the faith of their children. Prior research demonstrates that the quality of parent-child relationships and the incorporation of spiritual disciplines into the home matter to faith formation. However, the association between spiritual disciplines and the quality of parent-child relationships has not previously been explored. We consider a particular spiritual discipline—family devotions—which we define as the regular and intentional spiritual discipline practiced in the home that incorporates Bible reading, prayer, and other devotional materials. We analyze a sample of 2,397 parents of children enrolled in private Christian schools for their family devotions practices and self-reported quality of parent-child relationships. We find that parents who report consistently engaging in family devotions are more likely to report willingness to talk with their child about faith (15 points, p < 0.001), spending quality time as a family (20 points, p < 0.001), and openness to other conversations with their child (12 points, p < 0.001). Daily family prayer appears to matter most, though daily Bible reading matters more to fathers and daily use of other devotional materials matters more to mothers.

Lee, M. H., & Djita, R. R. (2024). Spiritual Formation in the Home: An Analysis of Family Devotions and Quality of Parent-Child Relationships. ACSI Working Paper: 2024-03. Retrieved from https://www.acsi.org/docs/default-source/research-member/wp2024-03.pdf?sfvrsn=701169d4_8

Full peer-reviewed published paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40839-025-00257-4

Though school boards play an important role in governing schools, little empirical research examines board governance particularly with respect to administrator hiring decisions. This study aimed to help close this research gap with a stated preferences experiment, focusing on head of school hiring decisions by private Christian school boards. This study uses as experimental identification strategy known as conjoint analysis to examine whether academic achievement, education, and experience impact the likelihood of head of school hire. We use data from the Flourishing Faith Index (FFI), a survey instrument fielded by the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), the largest Protestant school organization in the United States and one of the largest school organizations of any kind worldwide. We find evidence that board members place a premium on extensive teaching or leadership experience (37 percentage points), strong academic achievement and qualifications (24 points), and graduation from a postsecondary institution sharing their school’s religious tradition (16 points). As school administrators play an important role in leading their schools and school boards exercise oversight in part by hiring school administrators, this study has important implications for board governance, head of school hiring, and private Christian school operations.

Klutts, C., Cheng, A., & Lee, M. H. (2024). Which Characteristics Do School Boards Value When Hiring Heads of School? Experimental Evidence from American Christian Schools. ACSI Working Paper: 2024-04. Retrieved from https://www.acsi.org/docs/default-source/research-member/wp2024-04.pdf?sfvrsn=fe0a824d_4

Research documents that nearly all parents of school-aged children in the general U.S. population strongly consider academic quality when choosing a school for their children. Many of these parents also prefer a religious setting for their children’s education. However, little is known about how these school characteristics affect the stated preferences of parents of children in private faith-based schools. We conducted a conjoint experiment in which we presented 2,474 parents with three sets of three hypothetical schools, randomly varying each school’s tuition level and the quality of each school’s academics, spiritual formation, and extracurricular opportunities. We found that lower quality spiritual formation and academic offerings substantially reduce the likelihood a school will be selected by about 30 percentage points. The quality of extracurricular opportunities and tuition levels influence the likelihood a school will be selected to a lesser degree — about 11 percentage points.

Lee, M. H., Johnson, A., & Cheng, A. (2023). How Do Parents Choose Schools for Their Children? Experimental Evidence from the Private Christian School Sector. ACSI Working Paper: 2023-01. Retrieved from https://www.acsi.org/docs/default-source/research-member/wp2023-01.pdf?sfvrsn=6df4a958_4

Research shows that teacher quality is the most important school-related input correlated with student success. In religious private schools, teachers do not just influence academic outcomes; they may also play a role in spiritual formation. Religious school administrators report that their faith affects their hiring decisions. However, little research has examined the ways that religious school administrators choose individuals to place in teaching positions. In this study, we use conjoint analysis to experimentally examine the hiring preferences of 170 Christian school administrators. We find that having modest (compared to below-average) academic achievement and qualifications or extensive (compared to limited) experience each increases a candidate's likelihood of being hired by 26 percentage points. Having strong (compared to modest) academics, being a graduate of a Christian (compared to secular) postsecondary institution, or being a graduate of the administrator’s K-12 school (compared to a different school) produces smaller effects. We also find some evidence of effect heterogeneity across settings inside and outside the United States.

Johnson, A., Lee, M. H., & Cheng, A. (2023). Which Characteristics Do Religious School Administrators Value in Teachers? Experimental Evidence from the Global Christian School Sector. ACSI Working Paper: 2023-02. Retrieved from https://www.acsi.org/docs/default-source/research-member/wp2023-02.pdf?sfvrsn=fd4f09b9_7

Enrollments in religious higher education institutions have increased in recent years. Leaders of these institutions often cite students’ desire to attend a college or university supportive of their faith as a reason for enrolling. However, it is unclear whether religious colleges and universities are more supportive of faith than secular institutions. We analyze a sample of private Christian school alumni and compare perceived faith support of students who attended a religious higher education institution with similar students who attended a secular institution. We find students of religious higher education institutions reported significantly higher levels of feeling supported (roughly 1.2 standard deviations) or strengthened in their faith (roughly 0.4 standard deviations) and significantly lower levels of feeling attacked for their faith (roughly 0.8 standard deviations). Differences are particularly pronounced for students who report having been a Christian for many years and for students who attend religious services weekly or more frequently.

Lee, M. H., Djita, R. R., & Price, E. (2023). Spiritual Formation in College and University: Do Students in Religious Higher Education Institutions Feel More Supported in Their Faith?. ACSI Working Paper: 2023-03. Retrieved from https://www.acsi.org/docs/default-source/research-member/wp2023-03.pdf?sfvrsn=b29cfc9e_8

Studies on the role of Christian postsecondary institutions in sustaining students’ spiritual development in Christian schools mostly come from more developed western Christian countries. This study seeks to provide more insight into why. We found consistent results among administrators, teachers, and parents in Christian schools who agreed that spiritual development is their highest goal. In addition, we also found that there are statistically significant differences between Christian university graduates and non-Christian university graduates in their views of what the highest goal of education is. Implications of the results are discussed.

Djita, R. R. & Nie, O. Y. (2023). Spiritual development as the purpose of Christian education and the role of Christian university: evidence from Indonesia?. ACSI Working Paper: 2023-04. Retrieved from https://www.acsi.org/docs/default-source/website-publishing/research/wp2023-04.pdf