Leveraging Administrative Data to Study the Special Education Teacher Workforce

Abstract

Special educator shortages have threatened the provision of services to students with disabilities since the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975, since reauthorized as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. We conducted a systematic review of studies that used administrative data to study the special educator workforce. We identified 12 studies addressing policies or practices related to the composition, distribution, or effectiveness of the special educator workforce. Together, these studies provide emerging evidence regarding policies and practices that could support the special educator workforce. We recommend that future special educator-focused research with administrative data address the composition, distribution, and effectiveness of the workforce in tandem, better attend to heterogeneity, and move from descriptive studies to studies evaluating the outcomes of specific policies.