Abstract:
Research indicates a national shortage of special education teachers in schoolsacross America. The long-standing challenge in the area of special education teacherretention and attrition continues to be a serious threat to our educational system.Researchers and policy makers have expressed concern over the shortage of specialeducation teachers. This shortage has been chronic since the late 1980s and has continuedto increase. Incentives have been offered to retain special educators, but many of theseoffers have been unsuccessful. This study attempted to determine factors that contribute to a special educationteacher’s decision to exit the classroom within the Region 1 area of Kansas during the2004-05 and 2005-06 school years. The study additionally sought to compare the ratingsof the factor importance of the decision to leave the classroom among the five teachinggroups clustered by years of experience (0-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, and 20 plus). Region 1consisted of nine school districts in northeastern Kansas, near the Kansas Citymetropolitan area. A survey was mailed to 227 Region 1 special education teachers whohad left their teaching assignments during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years. Therespondents were asked to complete a survey that offered fifteen potential factorscontributing to their exit from the classroom. One hundred surveys were returned. The results of this study indicated that paperwork and administrative support weretwo statistically significant factors that contributed to a special education teacher’sdecision to leave the classroom. Another factor, parental demands, did not show asignificant difference from the one-sample t test, although it can be stated as a strongfactor contributing to the decision to leave the classroom. The study also indicated that the factor “lack of certification requirements” was found to have a significant differenceamong the mean ratings of the experienced teaching groups, with two marginallysignificant differences between special education teachers with 0-5 years of experienceand those with 11-15 years of experience.