Emily K. Penner

Emily Penner
Emily K. Penner
Associate Professor, School of Education,
University of California, Irvine

Dr. Emily K. Penner is an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine. She is a William T. Grant Scholar and was formerly a Jacobs Foundation Young Scholar and National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow. Her research focuses on educational inequality and policy, and considers the ways that districts, schools, teachers, and parents can contribute to or ameliorate educational inequality. Penner is working on projects that examine teacher recruitment and retention in constrained labor and housing markets; how school sorting processes affect student opportunities to learn; and how educator-initiated curricula that center the cultural and historical experiences of traditionally marginalized students impact student outcomes. Penner received her PhD and MA in education from the University of California, Irvine.

updated 2025

Contributing topics
Continuous school improvement & support
Education finance
Educational governance & policy
Understanding, measuring & improving student outcomes
Contributing initiatives
CORE-PACE Research Partnership
COVID-19 Recovery
Emily K. Penner in the Media
: OCDE Forum Tries to Dispel Myths About Ethnic Studies and Critical Race Theory
: How Schools Can Help Children Recover from COVID Closures
: The Financial Stress of Teaching in Regions of Fast Economic Growth
: California Data Show Flaws in Federal Regulations
Publications by Emily K. Penner
memo
Identity Crisis
Multiple Measures and the Identification of Schools Under ESSA
This report examines the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and how schools can be identified for support and improvement using a multiple measures framework. The authors find that different academic indicators measure different aspects of school…