About

Daniel W. Player is a professor of public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on education policy, specifically examining how teacher ability is recognized and rewarded in schools, the factors that predict teacher turnover, and how teachers respond to working conditions. He is also interested in evaluating the effectiveness of education policies aimed at improving student outcomes. At Batten, Player teaches courses on policy analysis, education policy, economics, and research methods. His work has been published in academic journals such as the Economics of Education Review, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and Education Finance and Policy. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Washington and a BS in economics from Brigham Young University. Prior to his current position, he worked as a senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research and as a research assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Machine Learning
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Developmental psychology
• Statistics
• Engineering
• Economics
• Environmental economics
• Public relations
• Pedagogy
• Mathematics
• Applied psychology
• Physics

Selected publications

• Retaining from away and homegrown teachers in rural schools: Supportive working conditions, community connectedness, and person-organization fit theory

  Teaching and Teacher Education · 2026-01-09

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Latent School-Level Classes of Teacher Working Conditions in Virginia: Description, Teacher Preferences, and Contextual Factors

  AERA Open · 2025-03-12 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Many dimensions of teacher working conditions influence both teacher and student outcomes; yet, analyses of schools’ overall working conditions are challenged by high correlations among the dimensions. Our study overcame this challenge by applying latent profile analysis to school-level measures of school leadership, instructional agency, professional growth opportunities, rigorous instruction, managing student behavior, family engagement, physical environment, and safety. We identified four classes of schools: Supportive (61%), Unsupportive (7%), Unstructured (22%), and Structured (11%). The patterns of these classes suggest that schools may face tradeoffs between factors such as more teacher autonomy for less instructional rigor or discipline. Teacher satisfaction and their stated career intentions were predicted by their school’s working conditions class, and school contextual factors predicted class membership. By identifying formerly unseen profiles of school-level teacher working conditions and considering the implications of being a teacher in each, decision-makers can provide schools with targeted supports and investments.

  PublisherDOI

• Principal Turnover: Using Teacher-Assessments of Principal Quality to Understand who Leaves the Principalship

  Educational Administration Quarterly · 2021-04-24 · 7 citations

  articleSenior author

  Purpose: The purpose of this article is to estimate the relationship between principal quality and turnover. Principals can have potentially large effects on student outcomes. When school leaders leave their roles, they cause disruptive effects to the school’s climate. If effective principals are more likely to leave, the negative effects of principal turnover are likely exacerbated. Relatively little, however, is known about the quality of principals who leave the principalship. Research design: We use teachers’ perceptions of their principals as a measure of principal quality to understand the quality of principals who leave schools. We address this research question in New York City public schools from 2013 to 2016, and then replicate it at the national level using the Schools and Staffing Survey data from 2008 to 2012. To understand how principal quality relates to principal turnover, we run linear probability regressions of principal exits on (teacher-assessed) principal quality, controlling for a set of teacher, principal, school, district/state, and time characteristics. Findings: We find that higher quality principals are less likely to leave their schools. This finding persists across school contexts and time, lending robustness to our results. Conclusions: Findings suggest that inasmuch as principal turnover is a concern, it is not driven by higher quality principals. Districts should therefore focus on recruiting more higher quality principals as opposed to focusing on reducing overall principal turnover. Moving forward, research should focus on differential attrition patterns so that efforts to retain principals can be better targeted.

  PublisherDOI

• Program Capacity for Redesign in Educational Leadership Preparation

  Journal of Research on Leadership Education · 2020 · 8 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Computer Science

  Characteristics that contribute to successful redesign and launch of principal preparation programs may be understood collectively as the capacity of those programs. A model of capacity for redesign of principal preparation programs should strike a balance between the technical and professional aspects of teaching and leadership and the cultural and relational aspects of organizations. We surveyed a national sample of program directors and interviewed a purposive sample of those in the midst of redesigning their programs to arrive at a framework of the tools and raw materials programs need to meet the new demands of principal preparation.

  PublisherDOI

• Simplifying quality rating systems in early childhood education

  Children and Youth Services Review · 2020 · 20 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  • Economics
  PublisherDOI

• A Mixed-Methods Approach for Embedding Cost Analysis Within Fidelity Assessment in School-Based Programs

  Behavioral Disorders · 2020 · 17 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Machine Learning
  • Psychology

  This mixed-methods study describes a framework for conducting cost analyses of school-based programs leveraging fidelity data and applying the ingredients method. We illustrate this approach by applying it to Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), drawing on multiple sources of data from a sample of U.S. 77 schools that were trained in PBIS. We concluded that the average per school cost of PBIS was US$53,216.00 (median = US$36,698), with an average per-pupil cost of US$90.00 (median = US$58.00), which is considerably less than other school-based prevention models. The cost did, however, differ by implementation level, such that high-fidelity implementation tended to cost more than low-fidelity implementation. We provide a case illustration to elucidate some of the cost drivers of PBIS implementation. Specifically, these data highlight the variability in the amount of training and coaching by the specific evidence-based program implemented within the tiered PBIS framework. Through this case illustration, we demonstrate the utility of tracking costs of school-based program within the context of fidelity data collection. The findings also suggest the potential cost savings of PBIS, both when compared with other evidence-based interventions as well as the known costs of negative school outcomes like dropout.

  PublisherDOI

• Administrative Climate, Early Career Teacher Burnout, and Turnover

  Journal of School Leadership · 2019-03-14 · 56 citations

  article

  Teacher burnout and turnover are known to be especially high for early career teachers (ECTs). However, the link between teacher burnout and turnover has received little attention in the current age of accountability. This study investigates how administrative climate is related to ECT burnout and subsequent career decisions using data from Michigan Indiana ECT Study participants ( n = 184). Results from linear regressions show that higher measures of administrative climate are strongly associated with lower levels of burnout. Subsequent logit models reveal that higher burnout, in turn, predicted ECT turnover while administrative climate surprisingly did not. These findings may lead to a better understanding of school leadership’s established role as a top determinant of teacher mobility.

  PublisherDOI

• Are there differences in parents’ preferences and search processes across preschool types? Evidence from Louisiana

  Early Childhood Research Quarterly · 2018-01-01 · 33 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Measuring the quality of teacher–child interactions at scale: Comparing research-based and state observation approaches

  Early Childhood Research Quarterly · 2018-01-01 · 35 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• District Readiness to Support School Turnaround: A Guide for State Education Agencies and Districts, 2nd Edition. The Center on School Turnaround Four Domains Series.

  2018-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author
  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Dan Goldhaber

  American Institutes for Research

  13 shared

• Betheny Gross

  Western Governors University

  8 shared

• Daphna Bassok

  7 shared

• Anna J. Markowitz

  6 shared

• Preston Magouirk

  4 shared

• Frank Perrone

  Indiana University Bloomington

  3 shared

• Tim Silva

  3 shared

• Kristin Hallgren

  Mathematica Policy Research

  3 shared