Beginning Special Education Teachers: At Risk for Attrition (original) (raw)
Related papers
An Analysis of Pre-Service Versus Experienced Special-Education Teachers’ Perceptions of Attrition
2014
In this quantitative study, I assessed the presence of factors related to attrition in pre-service special educators. I surveyed 23 pre-service special educators regarding various attrition factors identified in the research literature and then compared their responses to the perceptions of 32 seasoned special educators to test for statistical significance. Participants were located at a large, public university in the southeast United States and the largest public-school system in proximity to the university. The results of the study indicated that attrition factors may be evidenced in preservice educators and therefore detectable prior to entering the teaching field. The study also found that pre-service educators frequently had low expectations for what they would face. For instance, compared to the reality reported by the experienced educators, the pre-service educators expected to do more work and have fewer resources available to them. However, they also expected there to be more collaboration and support, and they expected areas such as paperwork to be more meaningful than the experienced educators reported was the case. The results help to direct future research by noting areas in which the expectations of the pre-service educators differed from those of the experienced educators, such as the expectation of building relationships.
1995
This paper reports on a study investigating the issues that most significantly influence urban special education teachers' decisions to leave the field voluntarily or transfer to a different type of educational position. First, it presents the results of post-attrition interviews with 17 special educators who left their positions during or immediately following the 1991-92 school vear and then reports results of a survey of 868 special educators in three urban areas. The first section of the report describes the sample; explains tho interview design, guide, and process; and reviews data analysis procedures. The second section focuses on three recurrent themes drawn from the interviews: job design, the nature of relations with the central office, and the professional and/or personal fit of their special education teaching assignment. The report then describes the development of the questionnaire used in the survey and procedures employed for descriptive analysis, including factor analysis of all teachers who completed the survey, analysis of those who expressed an intent to leave in the near future, and analysis of differences in profiles of work-related leavers and those who stayed. Data are reported by factors relating to support, preparation, stress related to job design and workload manageability, affective issues related to students, satisfaction and personal assessment of rewards, and role conflict. Appendices provide additional analytical detail. (DB)
Working in Special Education: Factors that Enhance Special Educators' Intent to Stay
Exceptional Children, 2001
T he noted documentarian John Merrow (1999) recently examined national attempts to fill the shortage of qualified teachers, including major recruitment and incentive efforts by various states. He concluded that enhanced teacher recruitment is not the answer: "We're misdiagnosing the problem as 'recruitment' when it's really 'retention.' Simply put, we train teachers poorly and then treat them badly-and so they leave in droves" (p. 64). Merrow's documentary and related arti-cle help once again to highlight a critical issue in special education: the need to retain qualified personnel. A national survey of over 1,000 special educators recently conducted by the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) concluded: "Poor teacher working conditions contribute to the high rate of special educators leaving the field, teacher burnout, and substandard quality of education for students with special needs"
Supporting Beginning Special Education Teachers
Focus on Exceptional Children, 2017
The first few years of teaching are indeed vital ones. During these years the novice emerges from the status of a student responsible for his or her own learning to that of a teacher responsible for promoting learning in others (Cooke & Pang, 1991). Tonnsen and Patterson (1992) described the first year this way: New teachers aren ' t always prepared for the challenges they ' ll find in the profession. They enter the field expecting-and often being expected-to do what the veteran teacher has been doing for years, with equal success. They face long days, filled with little time for reflection and planning. They face children with problems they can' t understand. They face a bureaucracy that forces them to teach a prescribed curriculum in a prescribed manner ... Just months earlier, most of these new teachers were carefree college students, idealistic to a fault. If they're thrown into a classroom and expected to succeed with little or no support, it's no wonder many of them quickly become disillusioned. (p. 29) And it is no wonder that so many teachers leave the field early in their careers. Add to this description an ill-equipped classroom, limited materials and supplies, overwhelming amounts of paperwork, a myriad of legal and accountability issues, students of widely differing abilities, and students with serious emotional and behavioral problems, and you have the situation facing many beginning special education teachers. Thus the stage is set for a beginning year that will severely test the morale and dedication of even the most well prepared and enthusiastic new teacher. An estimated 25% of beginning teachers do not teach more than 2 years and 40-50% leave the teaching profession within the first 5 years of teaching (Harris & Associates, 1992; Huling-Austin, 1986; Kirby & Grissmer, 1993; Schlechty & Vance, 1983). By the end of 5 years, 43% of the special educators newly hired in Michigan and North Carolina were no longer teaching in those states (Singer, 1992). Although some of these teachers may have been teaching in other states and others may ultimately have returned to the profession, even the temporary loss of these teachers is significant. And far too many leave permanently. The Council for Exceptional Children's (2000) report "Bright Futures for Exceptional Learners" states that "four out of every ten special educators entering the field leave special education before their fifth year of teaching" (pg. 1). Why does this happen to teachers who begin with such enthusiasm and so many high hopes? What are the needs and concerns of beginning special education teachers? What kinds of supports can we provide to these beginning teachers that will ease their transition
Attrition of Special Educators: Why They Leave and Where They Go. Working Paper
1995
Telephone interviews concerning special education teacher attrition were conducted with 96 former special education teachers in Florida. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used to analyze the interview data. Participants had not returned to their special education teaching positions after the 1992-93 school year. The majority of these leavers indicated that they had taken positions that were education-related. Disgruntled teachers (n=49) made up the largest category of leavers. Nondisgruntled teachers (N=36) made up the second largest category *