Roddy Theobald is a senior policy researcher at RAND. He is the co-director of the Special Educator Workforce: A Research Collaborative (SPARC Center), an IES-funded research and development center focused on studying the composition, distribution, stability, and effectiveness of the special education teacher workforce across seven states. His other ongoing projects investigate teacher education and licensing, career and technical education, and special education in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
Roddy received his Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Washington in 2015, and he previously worked as a managing researcher at American Institutes for Research, as a research assistant at the Center for Education Data and Research at the University of Washington, and as a 7th-grade math teacher at Westlake Middle School in the Oakland (CA) Unified School District as a Teach For America corps member.
Education
B.A. in mathematics, Carleton College; Ph.D. in statistics, University of Washington
Selected Work
- Theobald, R., Xu, Z., Gilmour, A., Lachlan-Hache, L., Bettini, E., & Jones, N., "The impact of a $10,000 bonus on special education teacher shortages in Hawai`i," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 48(1), 2026
- Carruthers, C., Dougherty, S., Goldring, T., Kreisman, D., Theobald, R., Urban, C., & Villero, J., "Who takes high-earning CTE pathways?" Southern Economic Journal, 2026 (forthcoming)
- Dizon-Ross, E., Falken, G., Goldhaber, D., Lavallee, P., & Theobald, R, "The front end of the CTE teacher pipeline: Characterizing the prior work experiences of CTE teachers," AERA Open (forthcoming)
- Gilmour, A., Aniagyei-Cobbold, E., & Theobald, R., "Unequal and maybe inequitable: Emergency permitted special education teachers in Pennsylvania," Teacher Education and Special Education, 49(2), 2026
- Gilmour, A., Bettini, L., Klinenberg, J., Mason-Williams, L., & Theobald, R., "Studying special education teachers in State Longitudinal Data Systems. ," Teacher Education and Special Education, 49(1), 2026
- Goldhaber, D., Falken, G., & Theobald, R., "Supply and demand in the postpandemic teacher labor market," Educational Researcher, 2026
- Kaler, L., Theobald, R., Jones, N., & Bettini, E., "Impacts of staff turnover on test scores for students with and without disabilities. ," Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, , 2026
- Kaler, L. & Theobald, R., "Turnover patterns in the paraeducator workforce in Washington," Teacher Education and Special Education, 49(1), 2026