The authors use data on high school students and teachers from Washington state to connect the observable characteristics and preparation of career and technical education (CTE) teachers to various non-test outcomes (absences, disciplinary incidents, grades, grade progression, and on-time graduation) of students with and without disabilities in…

Students with extensive support needs (ESN) benefit from inclusion in general education settings with their same-age peers. Many teachers, however, report feeling overwhelmed and underprepared to effectively educate students with ESN within general education settings. To mitigate this, we must ensure that content related to the instruction and…

Special education teachers play an integral role in preparing students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) for a successful transition to their desired postsecondary pathways. As more opportunities arise for students with IDD to attend inclusive postsecondary education (IPSE) programs, there is a growing need for special…

This latent class analysis study used a bias-adjusted three-step approach to empirically identify mutually exclusive clusters of teacher professional qualifications based on commonly studied indicators of teacher quality. We then examined the relationship between cluster membership and the mathematics gains of adolescents at risk for mathematics…

Skilled reading is a complex process in which many subskills are involved, including an awareness of the morphological structure of language. Morphological awareness is the ability to understand how words are broken into meaningful units (e.g., affixes, root words). Explicit and systematic teaching of morphological concepts are reported to help…

Teacher preparation programs play a seminal role in the development of prospective teachers, as they provide future educators with information regarding the rights of students with disabilities and the pedagogical means to support them in the classroom. Yet, few programs focus on how to discuss disability with students (Abernathy & Taylor,…

Few teachers receive adequate preparation to provide effective individualized instruction for children with intensive early writing needs. In this article, the authors describe an attempt to close this learning gap, by developing Data-Based Instruction-Tools, Learning, and Collaborative Support (DBI-TLC), a comprehensive professional development…

In this review, the authors include 23 studies where researchers experimentally evaluated training for teachers of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Authors summarized qualitative information on study and participant characteristics. Next, variables related to teacher practice and student learning targets were categorized based on…

This article describes the development, implementation, and second-year evaluation of Project Autism Competencies for Endorsement (ACE), a web-based professional development (PD) program that is designed to train teachers currently working in the field to meet the unique and diverse needs of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). A…

This paper includes results from a study that examined the relationships between teacher discipline, type of teaching degree, and teacher feelings of preparedness and the self-efficacy beliefs (competence and confidence) of early intervention and preschool teachers with regard to either natural environment or inclusion practices. The participants…

There is a critical need to mentor novice special education teachers to meet the current and projected teacher shortages. However, due to the various skill-levels of beginning special education teachers in schools and the small number of current special educators in each school who could serve as mentors, there is difficulty finding…

In this article, the author details the findings of a study of completers during their last semester of a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program in special education. The purpose of this multiple-case study was to understand how the extent to which the program was implemented, the participants' background and career trajectories, and the…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandates that every classroom be staffed with a "highly qualified teacher." Research supports that teachers' content knowledge affects student achievement. However, the special education population continues to be taught by teachers who do not have the content area background they teach. In addition,…

Despite a history of research in general education on novice teachers, researchers have only recently begun to investigate the experiences of beginning special educators. Many of these studies describe problems encountered, noting the high attrition rate among beginning special education teachers and emphasizing the importance of keeping qualified…

In this study, the authors evaluated the empirical properties of the 33-item Teacher Knowledge and Skills Survey (TKSS) 2.0 for positive behavioral support (PBS) in schools. Through an examination of internal consistency and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the theorized construct, the construct validity of the survey was evaluated. Results…