Although collaboration among service providers has been a hallmark of special education almost since its inception, co-teaching, the sharing of instruction by a general education teacher and a special education teacher or another specialist in a general education class that includes students with disabilities, is a relatively recent application. As a result of recent federal legislation and related policy changes, co-teaching has evolved rapidly as a strategy for ensuring that these students have access to the same curriculum as other students while still receiving the specialized instruction to which they are entitled.Despite considerable enthusiasm expressed by those who write about co-teaching and those who implement it, co-teaching illustrates the complexity of conceptualizing and studying collaboration in special education. Most inquiry on co-teaching has emphasized co-teachers' roles and relationships or program logistics rather than demonstrating its impact on student achievement and other key outcomes, and far more literature exists describing coteaching and offering advice about it than carefully studying it.Contributing to the admittedly equivocal evidence base for co-teaching are factors such as the still emerging understanding of this special education service delivery vehicle, inconsistencies in definitions and implementation, lack of professional preparation, Correspondence should be sent to Marilyn Friend,

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The purposes of this research were to quantify trends in three components of teacher turnover and to investigate claims of excessive teacher turnover as the predominant source of teacher shortages. Attrition and teaching area transfer rates were comparable in special and general education and increased substantially from 1991-1992 to 2000-2001. School migration was stable over years, but higher in special than general education. Although annual turnover was high and increased to 1 in 4 teachers (25.6%) by 2000-2001, teacher attrition was lower than in other occupations. Evidence suggests that retention is unlikely to increase without dramatic improvements in the organization, management, and funding of public schools. Until then, an increased supply of qualified teachers is needed to reduce teacher shortages. Disciplines Education CommentsReprinted from Exceptional Child, Volume 75, Issue 1, September 2008, pages 7-31.We have contacted the publisher regarding the deposit of this paper in ScholarlyCommons@Penn. No response has been received.This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/ 184 ----------------i_------------

When teachers discuss co-teaching, a similar understanding of the co-teaching concept is important. Our definition is as follows: two or more professionals delivering substantive instruction to a diverse, or blended, group of students in a single physical space. This definition includes four key components which are elaborated here. First, co-teaching involves two educators*, and occasionally, more. For purposes of the discussion here, one of the professionals is a general education teacher and the other is a special educator-either a special education teacher or a specialist in one of the related services such as a speec1i/language therapist. Another configuration of teachers falling under the rubric of co-teaching may be two middle school teachers teaching English and social studies in an integrated block. The intent here, however, is to focus on the somewhat unique possibilities that occur from the different but complementary perspectives of the professionals involved: General educators who specialize in under tanding, structuring, and FOCUSOO Exce_ntional children ISSN0015-511X FOCUS ON EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN (USPS 203-360) is published monthly except June, July, and August as a service to teachers, special educators, curriculum specialists, administrators, and those concerned with the special education of exceptional children. This publication is annotated and indexed by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Handicapped and Gifted Children for publication in the monthly Current Index to Journals in Education (CUE) and the quarterly index, Exceptional Children Education Resources (ECER). The full text of Focus on Exceptional Children is also available in the electronic versions of the Education Index.

In view of the paucity of national data on the associations between predictor variables and teacher retention, school transfer, and attrition in special education, we sought to provide such data from a national probability sample of 4,798 public school teachers from the 1989 Teacher Followup Survey (Faupel, Bobbitt, & Friedrichs, 1992). The analysis focused on teacher retention and turnover (i.e., school transfer and attrition) of special education teachers (SETs) in comparison with general education teachers (GETs). Results showed that teacher turnover decreased as the following variables increased: teacher age (until retirement age), the number of dependent children, the level of certification, the number of years since the last degree was earned, teaching experience and salary level. The importance of these and other relationships for designing strategies to maximize teacher retention is discussed.