States face different special education staffing challenges that require targeted responses

Chronic special education teacher shortages leave many students with disabilities without access to the instruction and support they need to meet learning and lifetime goals. Nearly all states and about half of school districts reported special education teacher shortages in 2023-24. Policymakers have therefore been developing a flurry of new policies and programs to enhance special educator recruitment and retention. Their approaches include: statewide teacher residency and apprenticeship programs to boost supply; district salary increases and bonuses to improve retention; and local efforts to improve working conditions that address both recruitment and retention.

Given the reported urgency and breadth of the special education staffing challenges states face, it might be tempting to believe that all states and districts face the same staffing challenge and could adopt similar solutions. But we wanted to dig deeper to confirm whether that conclusion is warranted.

In a recent SPARC Center report, we used state longitudinal data from seven states (Hawai‘i, Indiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington) to describe the composition, distribution, and stability of the special education teacher workforce from 2017-18 through 2022-23. Below, we summarize what we learned about one key challenge: special education teacher turnover. We argue that the varying patterns across states—and for different communities within the same state—suggest the need for policy responses targeted to state and local needs.

Special education teacher turnover in 7 states

We begin by charting the percentage of special education teachers, by state, who left the state’s teaching workforce entirely (Figure 1). Our primary conclusion from this analysis is that special education teacher attrition rates increased considerably in the two school years following the COVID-19 pandemic in nearly every state. This helps to explain a widespread focus on special education teacher recruitment and retention efforts. These analyses also made apparent that attrition rates varied substantially across states. For example, Virginia consistently had the highest attrition rates, while Pennsylvania had the lowest. The difference between these two states in average attrition was 10 percentage points. Notably, each of these states reports special education teacher shortages, although actual levels of attrition have varied substantially.

A deeper dive into the data also reveals considerable variation in special educator turnover across different types of schools and states. We summarize these differences by state in Figure 2. The bars correspond to three types of special education teacher turnover: attrition from the workforce; movement from special education teaching positions to general education teaching positions; and mobility to a special education teaching position at a different school. The total height of each bar is therefore the overall special education teacher turnover rate, defined as the average proportion of special education teachers who are not in the same position the following school year. And finally, Figure 2 breaks out all of these proportions by two different school characteristics: the top panel disaggregates by the percent of students in the school eligible for free/reduced price lunch (bottom quartile, middle quartiles, or top quartile), and the bottom panel disaggregates by the urbanicity of the district (rural, town, suburb, or city).

We draw three broad conclusions from Figure 2 that can inform policies to recruit and retain special education teachers. The first is that attrition from the workforce is only one type of teacher turnover that administrators must confront. This is especially true for Indiana, Massachusetts, and Texas, where large proportions of special education teachers move into general education teaching positions each year. While these teachers are not “lost to the system,” prior work has shown that the movement of dual-certified special education teachers out of special education (particularly early in teachers’ careers) is an important source of special education teacher shortages. Thus, interventions to keep special education teachers in special education should be an important feature of any policy seeking to address special education teacher shortages.

Second, there is considerable inequity in special education teacher turnover within many states, but the nature of this inequity varies by state. Pennsylvania has low overall special education teacher turnover, yet the state’s high-poverty and urban schools experience dramatically higher teacher turnover than other schools in the state. A similar pattern is seen in Indiana, Virginia, and (to a lesser extent) Washington. But Hawai‘i experiences higher turnover in rural schools, while the highest turnover in Massachusetts is in towns, suggesting that policies in different states need to target different kinds of schools and districts to have the greatest impact.

Finally, there are states in which special education teacher turnover perhaps can be described as “equitably bad”; for example, special education teacher turnover in Texas is markedly high regardless of the school context. This type of pattern suggests state-level interventions that can address these turnover patterns across the entire state.

Conclusions

Providing timely, accurate, and contextually relevant information about the status of the special education teacher workforce permits state and district leaders to respond more effectively to their local contexts. As we have demonstrated, different states face different special education teacher turnover problems. This suggests that the most promising solutions might vary across states.

States with high overall turnover rates, such as Texas and Virginia, may need immediate, universal interventions to keep more special education teachers in their positions. We look forward to seeing how the retention incentives included in Texas’s recently passed House Bill 2 may help to stabilize the workforce by increasing compensation for teachers overall and providing allotments aimed at recognizing teacher experience. Also, in 2024, Virginia released its Roadmap for Special Education, which included a call for dashboards to help school and district leaders monitor and reduce teacher turnover, as well as emphasis on high-quality instructional support and inclusive practices for students with disabilities.

States with large gaps in turnover rates by school poverty or urbanicity, such as Pennsylvania, may need policies that target special education teachers working in these settings. Here, too, we see some efforts underway. For example, in Pennsylvania, the School District of Philadelphia partners with the local institutions of higher education to prepare special education teachers while they work in Philadelphia schools. Additionally, the Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network’s Attract-Prepare-Retain programs promote the numerous opportunities available to help individuals enter the workforce, including state-supported pathways for paraeducators and financial support for student teaching. However, these efforts do not target specific school contexts associated with the higher levels of turnover.

Strengthening the special education teacher workforce may require even bolder policy actions based on local contexts. For example, Hawai‘i implemented large statewide bonuses for special education teachers ($10,000) and teachers working in particularly hard-to-staff schools (up to $8,000). Initial evaluations suggest this policy was effective at filling special education positions with certified teachers who were previously in general education and in reducing the flow of special education teachers into general education positions. Still, it was not sufficient to significantly reduce special education teacher attrition rates overall. These findings reflect that, in Hawai‘i, simply paying special education teachers more is not enough to compensate for the more challenging working conditions many of these educators face. The state likely needs to address these working conditions in addition to providing financial incentives.

As states consider a wide array of innovative policies, we recommend that they both: 1) Pay close attention to data on how special education workforce challenges manifest in their specific context; and 2) evaluate how effective these policies are in their local contexts.