Many states struggle with shortages of special education teachers (SET). To address the shortage problem in the long term, policymakers, preparation providers, and state and district administrators must ensure that any short-term strategies are combined with a comprehensive plan that includes long-term systemic strategies to strengthen the supply, preparation, and retention of special education teachers.

Denver Public Schools has launched a small pilot that is part of a new district strategy to better prepare new teachers to work in Denver’s many high-poverty schools, which tend to hire more novices. The students in those schools are more likely to be behind academically and in need of top-notch teachers.  In this pilot, DPS will have six “associate teachers” who will teach part-time in a high-poverty school and spend the rest of their time planning, observing, and learning.

This report analyzes evidence of teacher shortages, looks at national and regional trends in teacher supply and demand, and investigates policy strategies that might mitigate these effects based on research about effective approaches to recruitment and retention.

This paper explores how colleague relationships are critical for the experiences of beginning teachers, as are the school organizational norms that these beginning teachers experience. For special education teachers in particular, perception of colleague support was a strong predictor of retention plans. Similar results were seen with respect to their perception of the level of collective responsibility among the faculty. Taken together, these results suggest that schools and districts should make efforts to facilitate productive relationships between general and special education faculty, as well as to differentiate induction support for beginning special educators.

This paper provides a comprehensive review of what is known about teacher induction in special education and outlines recommendations for the design of induction programs and further research.

This blog addresses the reasons special education teacher leave the workforce and provides some strategies for creating school environments where special educators and their students can thrive.

This paper describes one teacher preparation program’s efforts to strengthen and extend existing partnerships with a small group of primarily rural school districts.