A National Perspective: An Analysis of Factors That Influence Special Educators to Remain in the Field of Education

Teaching is a relatively large occupation-it represents 4% of the entire civilian workforce (Menchaca, 2004). For at least two decades there has been a shortage of fully certified special education teachers in the United States. However, it is only recently that this shortage has received significant attention from policy makers at the national level (Billingsley and McLeskey, 2004). Policymakers and education leaders have become convinced that if they are going to make significant improvements in the quality of education, good teachers are critically important (Kaff, 2004). Resolving the personnel shortage issue in special education is a difficult task that many administrators are faced with. Keeping good effective teachers constitute a valuable human resource and should be one of the most important agenda items for school leaders (Darling-Hammond, 2003).

Burnout and attrition continue to rise among teachers. In the field of special education it has reached epidemic proportion. The annual attrition rate for special education teachers has been estimated to be between 8% and 10%. Central administration, building administrators, and other teachers must provide support to special education teachers in order to decrease the attrition percentage (Gersten, et. al., 2001).