Recruiting special education teacher candidates to teacher preparation programs and to special education classrooms continues to be a national struggle (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022; United States Department of Education, 2021). While a number of solutions to this decades-long problem have been explored, we offer the analysis of…

Ensuring that students are reading proficiently by third grade is a key component of keeping students on track to graduate high school and pursue college and careers. Because of the magnitude of this academic milestone, states typically pursue policies that promote early identification and intervention for struggling readers. However, teachers are…

A primary focus of recent educational policymaking has been on improving measures of teaching effectiveness, attributable in part to recent federal policies such as the Race to the Top initiative and Investing in Innovation. To date, neither researchers nor practitioners have arrived at a consensus on the best methods for evaluating special…

Distance teacher education programs employing videoconferencing technology and other online teaching tools are increasingly being used to prepare teachers of students with disabilities in rural and remote communities. This evaluation study compared the effectiveness of a distance and an on-campus teacher education program for teachers of students…

This study compares knowledge as measured by grade point averages and Praxis II scores between first-year special education teachers who completed one university's alternative teacher preparation program (ATTP) and those who completed the university's traditional teacher preparation program (TTPP). A total of 33 teachers, 15 from the ATTP and 18…

In North Carolina, where the state must hire 10,000 teachers every year just to fill existing classrooms, highly qualified special education teachers are included in the top three areas of greatest teacher shortage, behind math and science. Such needs, which include an increase in teachers from ethnic minorities, challenge teacher educators to…

This article describes how the design of digital learning objects can spark professional learning. The challenge was to build learning objects that would help experienced special education teachers, who had been teaching in math classes, to demonstrate their proficiency in middle and secondary school mathematics on the PRAXIS examination. While…

This study examined whether the reading, writing, and mathematics skill statements derived for the Praxis I Basic Skills Assessments and the Pre-Professional Skills Test (PPST) are considered by educators to be important for entry-level teachers of deaf and hard of hearing students. The study is based on a survey of 833 teachers, administrators,…

The 1998 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act requires states to report annually to the U.S. Department of Education the number of prospective teachers at each of their teacher training institutions who pass the state's tests for licensure. However, the law left decisions on what licensure tests to require, what to assess on them, and their…

A job analysis was conducted to define the content domain in which newly licensed (certified) special education teachers must be knowledgeable to perform their jobs in a competent manner. The results of the job analysis will be used to develop test specifications for the Subject Assessment in Special Education of the Praxis Series: Professional…