<p> The special education teacher is a part of any school district and with the position comes responsibility for the teacher, building administrators, and district administrators. These school district personnel must work together to create a safe environment for all students to be successful. </p><p> In 1983, the U.S. Department of Education&rsquo;s report, A Nation at Risk, brought attention to the issue of retention of schoolteachers, especially those that worked with special needs students. While working as a special educator, the researcher overheard many teachers express concern about poor working conditions within their respective school districts. They expressed a lack of adequate support from building and district administrators, parents, and general education teachers. They expressed inadequate time to complete required paperwork. The researcher worked for both school districts that participated in this research project; therefore when asked, the district superintendents granted permission to conduct research within the school districts. </p><p> The literature review supported the claims stated by special education teachers. When reviewing the literature, the researcher decided to add specifics on how society viewed those individuals who did not act or appear to be normal in society. There is history dating back to 10,000 B.C.E. about those with special needs. There were some very influential names and universities involved in reports of researching ways to prevent those with special needs from pro-creating. Furthermore, there were laws created that prohibited those with limited intelligence from immigrating to the United States. </p><p> This research involved utilizing a free, on-line survey program. The researcher invited only active special education teachers from the two participating school districts to participate in the survey. The questions related to perceptions of administrator support, working conditions, and mentoring. The researcher included mentoring because it was a requirement for new teachers in Missouri. The literature suggested that new teachers left the profession early in their careers due to mentoring issues. </p><p> This research study produced mixed results. The results indicated a concern regarding mentoring of new teachers. The responses from the participants suggested that there were still concerns, over thirty years after <i>A Nation at Risk,</i> about administrative support, working conditions, and mentoring.</p>

<p> This study was designed to determine the relationship between the family unit, which was defined as single-parent households and two-parent households, and educational placement. Data were collected from six Southwest Missouri K-8 districts in Region C. Participants reported student enrollment according to categories of single-parent special education, single-parent regular education, two-parent special education, and two-parent regular education. In addition, district special education coordinators were interviewed to gather data on their perspectives and experiences regarding the different household types and educational placement. This mixed methods design revealed students from single-parent households are more likely to be negatively affected by home environment situations and have a higher probability of academic deficits leading to special education placement. The negative effects included lack of stability, lack of organization, lack of availability to assist with academic tasks, lack of attention to diagnoses and treatment, lack of exposure to outside academic influences, increased demands on the student from inside the household, and hunger. These negative effects were attributed to decreased financial security, less stable working hours, and lower education levels of the single parents.</p>

<p> The researcher conducted a study focused on the suspension/expulsion and graduation rates of Missouri public high school special education students. The goal was to determine if these areas of focus influenced one another. Analysis occurred through the use of secondary data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education within the following school years: 2012-2013, 2013-2014, and 2014-2015. Additionally, public school personnel received online surveys via SurveyMonkey.</p><p> The four hypotheses targeted the following: a difference between public high school special education students and graduation rates, the number of students with disabilities suspended/expelled, the graduation rates of non-suspended/expelled special education students, and the suspension/expulsion rates of special education students compared to general education students. Analysis revealed during all three school years studied, differences existed. This was especially important for hypothesis three which was about the graduation rates of non-suspended/expelled special education students to suspended/expelled special education students. Results proved to be significantly different. </p><p> School personnel responded to four research survey questions. The first and second survey questions focused on the perceptions of staff and the suspension/expulsion rates of public high school students with and without disabilities. Survey question three asked staff who worked with students with disabilities what their viewpoints were about their graduation rates. The fourth survey question requested that public school employees write about interventions for high school special education students that would be more successful than suspension/expulsion. The last survey question asked public school personnel what the necessary supports were in order to be successful when working with special education students. The results revealed a range of staff perceptions. Staff responses included minimal concerns on the research topics to desiring the research topics become a major area of focus. </p><p> As an outcome of all results, the researcher suggested conducting additional data analyses, both quantitative and qualitative, distributing surveys during a different or extended time period, and adding interviews to the process. The researcher believed additional information would provide greater insights on suspension/expulsion and graduation rates and help public school employees determine ways to decrease one, while increasing the other.</p>

<p> The passage of The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (2002), formerly known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, sparked a significant rise in the number of students with disabilities receiving their instruction in the inclusive setting. While previous legislation mandated that students with disabilities be included in standardized testing, NCLB called for closing the achievement gap between students with disabilities and their nondisabled peers. Research indicated the success of students with disabilities in the general educational setting was influenced by teacher attitude. This qualitative study addressed secondary general and special education teacher attitudes and beliefs surrounding the practice of inclusion. It focused on comparing data on teacher attitudes towards the inclusion of students with disabilities into the general educational setting. Forty secondary teachers of varying ages, education, and with a range of five to 32 years of experience, from several school districts around metropolitan Saint Louis participated in this study. An electronic survey and semi- structured interviews were employed to query the teachers&rsquo; attitudes regarding the inclusion of students with disabilities in the general educational setting and the perceived barriers. The results indicated that teachers&rsquo; attitudes were generally positive toward the ideology of inclusion; however, when asked to express their views about the practice of inclusion in open-ended survey questions, results indicated less than positive views toward the practice of inclusion for all students. The most noteworthy factors associated with the negative attitudes was the lack of administrative support, and lack of training. Results also indicated that special education teachers&rsquo; attitudes towards inclusion were significantly more positive than those of general education teachers. The analysis of data revealed there was not a significant correlation between teachers&rsquo; attitudes of inclusion in regards to their type of certification, degree level, and years of experience.</p><p>

The current approach to identifying specific reading disability is plagued with problems. The most common diagnostic procedure, called the IQ-achievement discrepancy, involves establishing that a student's reading performance on standardized achievement tests is significantly below what would be expected from his/her IQ. This approach is unreliable with respect to diagnosis and uninformative with respect to prescriptives for remediation. An approach is needed that can provide reliable diagnosis and can indicate the deficient skills that could be targeted for remediation. The purpose of the present research was to evaluate alternatives to the IQ-reading discrepancy for identifying reading disabled college students. Specifically, the question was whether reading disabled and nondisabled college students could be differentiated using the Computer-based Academic Assessment System (CAAS) and a measure of listening and reading comprehension called the Sentence Verification Technique. College students recruited from Disabled Students Services and nondisabled introductory psychology students at the same college were given SVT tests and elementary-level and adult-level CAAS reading batteries. After all data was collected and prior to data analysis, students in the disabled sample were classified as having a reading disability, generalized learning disability, or other disabilities on the basis of various sources of information. The requirements of a diagnostic technique for identifying reading disability were used as a framework for evaluating SVT and CAAS techniques. Multivariate analyses of variance were used to evaluate each of the techniques alone, and discriminant analyses were used to evaluate the techniques in combination in meeting the following requirements: (1) differentiating disabled from nondisabled students, (2) differentiating reading disabled students from nondisabled students and from students with other disabilities, (3) differentiating among disabled students with different types of problems, and (4) identifying individual patterns of performance that indicate a reading disability. Results suggested that SVT and CAAS techniques were generally able to make the above distinctions with the CAAS technique appearing to be more effective. Reasons for why SVT may have been less successful are provided in the discussion.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1997. / Title from title page screen, viewed June 7, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Paula Smith (chair), Jeffrey Bakken, Raymond Schmitt, Mark Swerdlik, David Tucker. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-105) and abstract. Also available in print.