Do Public Managers Promote Employee Development in Hard-to-Staff Locales?

This article considers professional development activity among employees in remote public school agencies in eastern Kentucky. Drawing from a panel of principal and teacher data in 38 agencies, we predict teacher participation in a targeted development program as a function of teacher and school characteristics, with special attention to the role of the principal in promoting the program. Gender, experience, and educational characteristics appear to play important roles in who participates. Teachers whose principals joined the program and teachers with newer principals were more likely to participate. These results are interpreted in the context of the broad literature on public management.