Previously, he taught at South Shore Community Academy in the Chicago Public Schools and served as a senior research associate at the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST) at Teachers College, Columbia University. His work has appeared in Review of Research in Education, The Journal of Teacher Education, and Educational Philosophy & Theory. Dr. Tocci also serves on the leadership team for the National Endowment for the Humanities summer teacher program “Rethinking the Gilded Age and Progressivism: Race, Capitalism, and Democracy 1877–1920.”