Special education in the public-school setting is designed to support students with disabilities by providing them specially designed instruction to meet their unique needs. This cannot be achieved without special education teachers who undergo specialized training to enable students with a disability to reach their maximum potential. Special education teachers' job duties differ greatly from that of a general education teacher, and they require specialized supports from their administrators. This qualitative study was designed for three purposes: (a) to understand the current teacher evaluation system along with the state and local policies from which the evaluation system is created; (b) to define the unique roles and responsibilities of the special education teacher that the current evaluation process may be failing to identify; and (c) to give special education teachers a voice to describe their experiences with the current teacher evaluation system. A document review of the current Texas Teacher Evaluation and Support System (T-TESS) evaluation rubric and of current state and local teacher evaluation policies preceded focus groups of high school special education teachers from three special education settings: inclusion, self-contained, and resource. Findings showed that teachers across all three settings agreed that T-TESS is not a true reflection of their job and was not created with diversity in mind, thereby failing students with disabilities. When evaluating the T-TESS rubric, only two out of the 16 dimensions uses language that acknowledges diverse learners in the teacher performance grading standards while no dimension mentions working with students with disabilities. This indicates that across all areas of T-TESS, even the most distinguished teacher is not being evaluated on their ability to work and support students with disabilities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc1985359 |
| Date | 08 1900 |
| Creators | Stephens, Jennifer Elaine |
| Contributors | Pazey, Barbara L, Stromberg, Linda, Van Tassell, Frances, Weidenbach, Jay |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | Text |
| Rights | Public, Stephens, Jennifer Elaine, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved. |
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