Factors Influencing Pennsylvania Public School Special Education Teachers Desire to Leave Teaching

Abstract

Retaining qualified teachers is critical to the long-term success of students who receive special education services. Special education teacher retention is particularly important during the middle-school years, as this time is a marked period of transition between elementary and high-school that may place increasing demands upon teachers. Further, teachers in their first five years of working may be especially vulnerable to leaving their positions. I sought to identify the factors that contribute to public middle school special education teachers desire to leave teaching. Correlational analyses conducted on self-report data from 446 current public school special education teachers indicated classroom behavior, academic achievement, family involvement and communication, salary, potential for job advancement, and work attitude were significant predictors of whether teachers considered leaving. Based on the findings from the quantitative data, the original intent on focusing the research on middle-school became problematic as the statistical significance was not measurably different across grade levels taught. The qualitative information from open ended responses supports the quantitative results. The implications of these findings, future directions, and possible remediation strategies to improve retention are discussed.