Education Policy & Analysis

Education Policy has long been a strength at Penn GSE – since the mid 1990s, we have ranked in the top 10 education policy programs in US News & World Report. Our award-winning faculty are nationally renowned for their expertise, research, and impact on education issues and policies.

The Changing Face of the Teaching Force

Richard Ingersoll is an expert on teachers - how they work, where they work, and why they work. In a school reform climate that questions how much autonomy teachers should have in their work and their classrooms, Dr. Ingersoll looks to data for answers.

Dr. Ingersoll’s research sheds light on one of the largest and least understood professions in the United States. His work explores trends that have altered the face of the teaching force over the past three decades. Since the late 1980s, the teaching force has ballooned in size, significantly outpacing growth in student enrollment. Yet teaching has largely grown to meet new needs—from special education to language instruction to more math and science high school teachers. The research gives insights into recent trends in teacher turnover, mostly created by a churn of new and minority teachers into and out of the profession. Today, the most common (or modal) teacher has just one to three years of experience.

READ THE PRESS RELEASE HERE.

Report

Seven Trends: The Transformation of the Teaching Force, Updated October 2018.
A highly anticipated update of a 2014 report published by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education.

More publications by Richard Ingersoll

Media Inquiries

Kat Stein
Executive Director of Penn GSE Communications
(215) 898-9642
katstein@upenn.edu 

Featured Research

Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning

The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL) examines how college- and career-ready standards are implemented, if they improve student learning, and what instructional tools measure and support their implementation.

Consortium For Policy Research In Education

The Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) is a joint effort of seven graduate schools of education. Its research focuses on school reform, governance, policy, and finance.

CPRE Mathematics Formative Assessment Project

The Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP) is a large-scale field trial of a mathematics formative assessment program conducted by CPRE and funded by the National Science Foundation.

Penn Early Childhood and Family Research Center

The Penn Early Childhood and Family Research Center aims to advance the use of science in a context of public trust to address problems affecting the well-being of young children and families facing systemic injustice and disadvantage.

Responsive Math Teaching

Responsive Math Teaching (RMT) is an NSF-funded research project focused on improving mathematics instruction in a network of elementary schools through a research-practice partnership between Penn GSE and the School District of Philadelphia.

See all Penn GSE Research >