Richard M. Ingersoll, Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington
January 2002
The University of Washington's Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy published this 33-page research report by Richard M. Ingersoll of the University of Pennsylvania. Ingersoll has long been one of the most dogged and perceptive analysts of "out-of-field" teaching in the United States. Here he breaks some new ground, albeit in preliminary fashion. Using the federal government's Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), he looks not at issues of teacher training, certification or supply/demand but at other reasons why teachers end up responsible for courses in subjects different from those they trained for. It turns out that, especially for disadvantaged youngsters, much out-of-field teaching is explained by "aspects of the administration and organization of schools." Most striking: "[T]he way school administrators-especially school principals-respond to and cope with staffing decisions and challenges affects the levels of out-of-field teaching more than does the extent to which schools face teacher shortages and attendant hiring difficulties." It seems that schools and school systems differ considerably in how their administrators respond to difficulties in filling specific jobs. Ingersoll reports, for example, that only two-thirds of U.S. school districts "require that new teacher hires hold a college major or minor in the field to be taught." The implications are large: out-of-field teaching is not entirely (or even primarily) a product of demographic forces, large manpower shifts or the ups and downs of training institutions and certification rules. (Nor are unions to be blamed.) And the problem will not be solved, says Ingersoll, by "recruiting large numbers of new candidates into teaching and mandating more rigorous training requirements for them." His analysis implies that in schools, as in other institutions, getting the right people into the right jobs has much to do with the quality of leadership. The report may be downloaded at http://www.ctpweb.org.
