Special Education Teacher Attrition and Mobility Rates in Northeast Louisiana

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CHAPTER I:

INTRODUCTION

Teacher attrition has been a cause of concern in American education for some time (Ingersoll & Smith, 2003). This problem has had considerable impact on the stability and quality of educational programs in this country, and the problem has only have been getting worse in recent years: statistics reveal a higher percentage of teacher attrition then even before (DiPaola & Tschannen-Moran, 2005). In recent decades, the importance of this issue has been highlighted by the growing demands for research related to the training and preparation of teachers and increased requirements for certification (DiPaola & Tschannen-Moran, 2005).

The U.S Department of Education estimates that schools within the United States will need to hire 1.7 million to 2.7 million new teachers within the next decade to keep up with demand (Keigher, 2010). Barring any policy shifts, Louisiana, too, will continue to feel the impact of teacher attrition along with the nation at-large. Teacher attrition in general education continues to hover at an overwhelming 5.8 percent (Keigher, 2010). This number may not seem so alarming, until it is understood that over 90 percent of new teachers hired in any given year have only replaced teachers choosing to leave the profession for reasons other than retirement (Ingersoll, Merrill, & May, 2012).

The situation of Northeast Louisiana is even direr. Louisiana Department of Education (2011) reports that at least 12,000 new teachers must be hired each year to keep up with demand as well as attrition; however, current Northeast Louisiana teacher education programs are only preparing 3,500 teachers per year, making for a shortfall of over 8,500 teachers. According to the system-level teacher turnover report for the 2010-2011 school years in Louisiana, 11,399 teachers of the 92,166 teachers employed left their positions (Aud et al. 2011). System-level turnover ranged from a high of 25.76 percent to a low of 2.73 percent in the Local Education Agencies (Louisiana Department of Education, 2011).

Louisiana has embraced the effort to curb teacher attrition in part by taking a leading role in accountability and certification of teachers. In 2005, Education Week reported Louisiana was ranked 1st in the nation in efforts to improve the quality of teachers. This has been evidenced by revamped Teacher Certification requirements, and improvements in standards and accountability measures (National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 2007). However, with all of these improvements, Louisiana still has a serious issue with respect to special education teacher attrition.

Statement of the Problem

In the area of special education, the creation of a competent work force and a work setting that upholds the involvement and commitment of special educators is one of the most important challenges. For many years, there has been an urgent need for policy makers to manage the supply and demand chain of special educators (Smith-Davis & Billingsley, 1993), primarily because the field of special education has historically had an inadequate supply of qualified teachers. In 1999, Carlson (2001) found that more than 50,000 special education teachers ...