Special Education Teacher Evaluation

Abstract

There is currently little consensus on how special education teachers should be evaluated. The lack of consensus may be due to several reasons. Special education teachers work under a variety of complex conditions, with a very heterogeneous population, and support student progress toward a very individualized set of goals. In addition, special education is marked by historical rates of attrition, with a lack of highly qualified teachers entering the field, and a number of special education teachers completing alternate certification programs, leading to a combined effect that impacts overall professional quality. In this article, we first review the challenges associated with evaluating special education teachers, describe and analyze current approaches, and present a conceptual framework for an approach to special education teacher evaluation. We then provide an overview of the Recognizing Effective Special Education Teachers (RESET) tool as a possible alternative to measure special education teacher effectiveness. Given the current zeitgeist of teacher evaluation systems that fail to address the unique circumstances related to special education teachers, it is hoped that the information in this article will contribute to the small but growing body of research on special education teacher evaluation and effectiveness.

The Effects of Two Video Modeling Interventions on the Independent Living Skills of Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability

“…Although the time to skill completion was fastest with VM+P&R for Jake and Pete, both students required fewer minutes of instructional time with P&R than either of the videobased interventions. This is due in large part to the amount of time required to sit and view the video, but is an important consideration given that teachers are constantly struggling to find sufficient time to plan and deliver instruction (Johnson & Semmelroth, 2014). Compounding this argument is the fact that it took 40 minutes to create one video while no prep time was needed to implement P&R.…”

How middle school special and general educators make sense of and respond to changes in teacher evaluation policy

“…A growing body of conceptual literature has examined whether teacher evaluation measures originally designed for general educators are appropriate for special educators (Johnson & Semmelroth, 2014;Jones & Brownell, 2014;Jones et al, 2013). At the same time, there has been less empirical research on special educators' perceptions of or experiences with new approaches to teacher evaluation.…”

“…For example, special educators tend to focus their work on individual students with disabilities (SWDs) as opposed to whole classes of students and are typically responsible for such tasks as creating and enacting Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), adapting curriculum and assessments, and overseeing student progress (Jones, 2016). Additionally, special educators frequently provide explicit, teacher-directed instruction to individual students (Johnson & Semmelroth, 2014;Jones & Brownell, 2014). It is important to be mindful of such differences in work responsibilities between special and general educators when evaluating research on how each type of teacher is evaluated.…”

“…The FFT addresses four domains: planning and preparation, classroom management, teaching for student learning, and professionalism. While some aspects of CLASS and the FFT are consistent with the work of special educators, researchers have noted that their emphasis on constructivist teaching is inconsistent with special educators' focus on direct instruction (Johnson & Semmelroth, 2014;Jones & Brownell, 2014). In addition, both instruments are designed to assess whole-group instruction (or small-group work within larger classes) while many special educators provide a lot of instruction one-on-one or in very small groups.…”

Developing an understanding procedures observation rubric for mathematics intervention teachers

“…One way to increase implementation of research-based practices may be the use of teacher observation instruments designed for intervention settings (i.e., settings in which SMD are receiving additional instruction to remediate specific areas of difficulty or support development of proficiency). Such instruments should provide reliable and accurate feedback to teachers that is aligned with content-specific practices found to improve achievement for SMD (Johnson & Semmelroth, 2014). Although there are observation instruments that focus on mathematics instruction in general education settings (e.g., MQI, Learning Mathematics for Teaching Project, 2011;RTOP, Sawada et al, 2002), these instruments are not fully aligned with practices identified as most effective for SMD in interventions.…”