Richard M. Ingersoll

Read more about Dr. Ingersoll's Who Controls Teachers' Work?

Professor

Contact Information

Graduate School of Education
3700 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Phone: 215.573.5674
Fax: 215.573.6069
Email: rmi@gse.upenn.edu

Who Controls Teachers' Work? Power and Accountability in America's Schools.

Published by Harvard University Press. Winner of the 2004 Outstanding Writing Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Few issues in the realm of education have received more attention and are more controversial than the subject of this book – who controls the work of teachers? How much say do teachers have over their work and how much should they have? Are schools decentralized places where teachers work with little supervision or accountability, as some claim? Or are schools overly centralized places with too much top-down bureaucracy restricting teachers, as others argue? And what difference does it make, if any, for how well schools function? Drawing on data from international and national surveys as well as wide-ranging interviews with teachers and administrators, this book confronts one of the most important and misunderstood issues in education. Most research and policy, this book shows, misunderstands how much and what kinds of control and accountability currently exist in schools, and how much and what kinds should exist. As a result, many educational reforms--charter schools, school choice, educational accountability, school restructuring, teacher professionalization, and school-based management--too often begin with inaccurate premises about how schools work and so are bound, not only to fail, but to exacerbate the problems they propose to solve. Learn more here.

Short on Power, Long on Responsibility

Published in the September, 2007 issue of Educational Leadership, this is a brief four-page summary, drawn from the above book, of what the data indicate about the balance, or imbalance, between the power and control over school decisions held by teachers and the accountability increasing required of teachers. Download a copy.

Power, Accountability and the Teacher Quality Problem
Published by Teachers College Press in a 2011 volume (edited by Sean Kelly), this 13-page chapter offers a critique of the teacher accountability reform movement. It updates and summarizes data on the imbalance between the influence over school decisions held by teachers and the increasing accountability required of them. Download a copy.

For more publications on School Organization and Accountability, click here.

Is the Supply of Mathematics and Science Teachers Sufficient?

Published in the September, 2010 issue of the American Educational Research Journal, this 32-page research report empirically reexamines the issue of mathematics and science teacher shortages and evaluates the extent to which there is a supply-side deficit — a shortage — of new teachers in these fields, as is widely believed. This study analyzes national data on: the extent to which schools suffer from math and science teacher hiring difficulties; the main supply sources of new teacher hires for mathematics and science; whether the new supply of math and science teachers has kept pace with math and science student enrollments and with teacher retirements; and the portion of the new supply of qualified math and science teachers that is willing to teach. Download a copy.

The Magnitude, Destinations, and Determinants of Mathematics and Science Teacher Turnover

Released in October 2010 by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, this 48-page research report examines the mobility and attrition of mathematics and science teachers over the past two decades. Each year how many move to other schools and how many leave teaching? How does their turnover compare to other teachers? Has it changed over time? How much of it is concentrated in particular types of schools? What are the destinations of those leaving? Are math and science teachers leaving for jobs in industry? Which particular aspects and conditions of schools and of teachers’ jobs are most tied to their turnover? Download a copy.

Do We Produce Enough Mathematics and Science Teachers?

Published in the March 2011 issue of Phi Delta Kappan, this is a brief 4-page summary of the above two research articles on the supply and turnover of math and science teachers. Download a copy.

Data Say Retention is Better Answer to 'Shortage' than Recruitment (by Jeffery Mervis)

This is a news story on the above two research articles. It was published in the October 29, 2010 issue of Science. Download a copy.

Recruitment, Retention and the Minority Teacher Shortage 

Released in September 2011 by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education and the Center for Educational Research in the Interest of Underserved Students, this 50-page research report empirically grounds the debate over minority teacher shortages by examining national data on trends in the recruitment, employment and retention of minority teachers.  The data show that efforts over recent decades to recruit more minority teachers, and place them in disadvantaged schools, have been very successful. But, these efforts have also been undermined because minority teachers have lower retention — largely because of poor working conditions in their schools. Download a copy.

The Minority Teacher Shortage: Fact or Fable? 

Published in the September 2011 issue of Phi Delta Kappan, this is a brief 4-page summary of the above report on the status of the minority teacher shortage. Download a copy.

Teacher Turnover and Teacher Shortages: an Organizational Analysis

Published in the Fall 2001 issue of the American Educational Research Journal, this is a 35-page research report on the roots of teacher shortages and teacher turnover, with a statistical analysis of how much teacher turnover exists, which kinds of schools have more of it and why they do. Download a copy.

Is There Really a Teacher Shortage?

Published in September 2003 by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education and the Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, this 28-page research report builds on, and updates the above research article on the teacher shortage. It presents data on teacher demand, supply and turnover to make the case that the teacher shortage is a case of a wrong diagnosis and a wrong prescription. Download a copy.

Researcher Skewers Explanations Behind Teacher Shortage (by Debra Viadero)

This is a news story on a presentation given at the annual meeting of the AERA. It was published in the April 10, 2002 issue of Education Week. Download a copy.

For more publications on Teacher Turnover and Shortages, click here.

The Impact of Induction and Mentoring Programs for Beginning Teachers: A Critical Review of the Research

Published in the June 2011 issue of the Review of Educational Research, the objective of this 32-page paper is to provide policymakers, educators, and researchers with a reliable assessment of what is known, and not known, about the effectiveness of beginning teacher induction and mentoring programs -- that is, empirical studies that address the question: do induction and mentoring matter? A secondary objective of this paper is to identify important research questions concerning teacher induction that have not yet been addressed. Download a copy.

What are the Effects of Induction and Mentoring on Beginning Teacher Turnover?

Published in the fall 2004 issue of the American Educational Research Journal, this is a 40-page research report with a statistical analysis of national data on the prevalence and effects of beginning teacher induction and mentoring programs. Download a copy.

Do Teacher Induction and Mentoring Matter?

Published in the March 2004 issue of the NASSP Bulletin, this is a mid-length 13-page summary of the above research article with data on the prevalence and effects of beginning teacher induction and mentoring programs. Download a copy.

The Problem of Out-of-Field Teaching

Published in the June 1998 issue of Phi Delta Kappan, this is a brief 4-page summary of the problem of out-of-field teaching and some of the myths surrounding it. Download a copy.

The Problem of Underqualified Teachers in American Secondary Schools

Published in the March 1999 issue of Educational Researcher, this is a slightly longer 12-page article summarizing Dr. Ingersoll's research on the how much, so what, who, where and why of out-of-field teaching. Download a copy.

Misunderstanding the Problem of Out-of-Field Teaching.

Published in the January-February 2001 issue of Educational Researcher, this is a short 2-page follow up essay to the above article. It addresses two key misunderstandings surrounding the problem of out-of-field teaching: Do teachers' qualifications really matter? And what do measures of out-of-field teaching really measure? Download a copy.

Researcher Meets the Policy Realm: A Personal Account

Published in a 2008 volume (edited by Rick Hess) on how scholarship influences policy, this 20-page chapter offers a cautionary account of Dr. Ingersoll’s personal experiences doing research on the teacher quality problem.  The essay summarizes his research on the problem of underqualified teachers and describes how his data and findings have been used and misused by a variety of groups to buttress their competing claims in the contentious teacher quality debate in recent years. Download a copy.

Putting Qualified Teachers In Every Classroom

Published in the June 11, 1997 issue of Education Week, this is a short 2-page commentary piece on the problem of unqualified teaching and some of the myths surrounding it. Download a copy.

Four Myths About America's Teacher Quality Problem

Published in the 103rd Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, this 33-page chapter critiques four popular explanations for the problem of low-quality teachers and teaching in American schools: 1.) the teaching occupation is plagued by unusually restrictive and unnecessary entry barriers; 2.) severe teacher shortages are confronting elementary and secondary schools; 3.) the teaching force is inadequately trained and prepared; 4.) schools lack adequate control and accountability of the teaching force. Download a copy.

Misdiagnosing the Teacher Quality Problem

Published in September 2007 by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, this 9-page brief provides a short summary of three of the myths discussed in the above paper. Download a copy.

A Comparative Study of Teacher Preparation and Qualifications in Six Nations

Published in February 2007 by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, this is a collaborative, comparative study on the preparation and qualifications of elementary and secondary teachers in China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, the United States and Hong Kong. The study examined data from each of the seven educational systems on three specific sets of research questions:
1. What are the preparation requirements and standards to become a teacher?
2. What are the levels of qualifications of the current teaching force?
3. What proportions of teachers are not qualified in the subjects they teach?

Copies of the 14-page summary can be downloaded here.

Copies of the 106-page full report can be downloaded here.

For more publications on Teacher Quality, click here.

The Status of Teaching as a Profession

Published in 2011 in the 4th edition of Schools and Society: A Sociological Approach to Education (edited by Joan Spade and Jeanne Ballantine), this 12-page chapter uses theory and empirical data to answer the question of whether, and to what extent, elementary/secondary teaching is a profession. The chapter presents comparative data on licensing requirements, induction, professional development, specialization, authority, compensation and occupational prestige. Download a copy.

Who's Teaching Our Children?

Published in the May 2010 issue of Education Leadership, this is a short 6-page summary of a study examining how the demographic character of the teaching force has changed in recent decades. The study discovered that the teaching force has been, and is, greatly changing; yet, even the most dramatic trends appear to be little noticed, by researchers, by policy makers, and by the public. In this piece we summarize six trends: the teaching force has ballooned in size, is grayer, is greener, is more female, has not declined in academic ability, and is less stable. Download a copy.

The Changing Face of the Teaching Force

Published in the Fall 2010 issue of @Penn GSE: A Review of Research, this is another short summary of the above study examining how the demographic character of the teaching force has changed in recent decades. In this piece we summarize four trends: the teaching force has ballooned in size, is grayer, is greener, and is more female. Read a copy.