Special education is a field inherent with compliance and accountability issues. Special Education Administrators are tasked with the responsibility of implementing programs and maintaining compliance with state and federal standards while ensuring high quality educational performance. This research examined how the current Special Education Administrators are being held accountable under NCLB and IDEA. In addition, the previous roles and responsibilities of Special Education Administrator were reviewed in order to provide background information and to provide insight into Special Education Administrators' perceptions of key responsibilities under NCLB and IDEA 2004. The guiding questions for this study are: (1) What do Special Education Administrators perceive as their role and responsibilities under NCLB and IDEA 2004? (2) Do Special Education Administrators perceive their evaluation tool as an adequate measure of the current roles and responsibilities by which they are held accountable under NCLB and IDEA 2004? (3) Does the criteria by which Special Education Administrators are evaluated reflect what the research supports as those components related to roles and responsibilities under NCLB and IDEA 2004? The research design included quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis. The population for this study was stratified sample of 30 Special Education Administrators for the Commonwealth of Virginia. An online survey was utilized to conduct the initial research. In addition, in-depth interviews of special education administrators were conducted in order to gain a better understanding of how they are currently being held accountable. Research revealed that Special Education Administrators perceive they are currently being held accountable under NCLB and IDEA; though research concludes that current performance evaluation methodology does not measure the professional standards, including the roles and responsibilities of the Special Education Administrator. The conclusions of this study emphasize the importance of examining the performance evaluation procedures for Special Education Administrators in the Commonwealth of Virginia. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine what competencies urban directors of special education perceived to be essential for newly appointed urban special education administrators. Two research questions and two null hypotheses were generated to investigate the underlying factors in competencies perceived by urban special education directors to be essential for newly appointed special education administrators and to investigate the relationship between years of experience as a director of special education and these underlying factors. A factor analysis revealed that there were three underlying factors reported to be essential for newly appointed special education administrators. A multiple regression analysis indicated that the relationship between the years of experience as a director of special education and the underlying factors (Management, Instruction and Change; Supervision of Faculty; and Team Building Skills) was not statistically significant. A post hoc test was conducted to further detect differences in years of experience as an urban director of special education and the underlying factors. The results were sufficient to reject the null hypotheses in both cases.