Teacher Certification Area and the Academic Outcomes of Students With Learning Disabilities or Emotional/Behavioral Disorders

Abstract

Special education certification is used as an indicator of teaching quality in research, practice, and policy. This study examined whether elementary and middle school students with learning disabilities (LD) or emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) scored better on state math and English language arts (ELA) assessments in years when they were taught by a teacher certified in special education or dual-certified in special education and another area compared to years when they were taught by general education–certified teachers. For most student groups, academic achievement appeared unrelated to teacher certification type. Students with LD and higher academic skills appeared to benefit from having a dual-certified teacher over a general education–certified teacher in ELA. Lower achieving students with EBD scored worse in math when they were taught by special education–certified teachers instead of general education–certified or dual-certified teachers. Implications for indicators of teaching quality in special education are discussed.

Special Education Teacher Preparation, Literacy Instructional Alignment, and Reading Achievement for Students With High-incidence Disabilities

“…Student covariates in year t, X it , include student attributes typically included in VAMs (gender, race, eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch, English learner status); student disability type (i.e., allowing performance to differ across the high-incidence disability categories we include in this paper); and indicators for whether the student only received ELA instruction from a special education teacher, the level of inclusion in special education as captured by the student's least restrictive environment designations, and whether the student was taught mathematics by the same teacher. These variables have all been shown to be important in prior work on outcomes for students with disabilities (Buzick & Jones, 2015;Feng & Sass, 2013;Gilmour, 2020;Lai et al, 2020;Theobald et al, 2019. We also controlled for classroom means of these variables, X kt , and teacher experience in year t, T js , which we categorized using the same experience ranges used in Feng and Sass (2013).…”

“…We used this data set to contribute to three different lines of research. First, prior research has linked some broad measures of special educators' preservice experiences to outcomes for students with disabilities (Feng & Sass, 2013;Gilmour, 2020). For example, Feng and Sass (2013) found that teachers who were certified to teach special education, who majored in special education, and who took more special education coursework were more effective in terms of improving the achievement of students with disabilities in reading.…”

Disparities in Access to Well-Qualified, Well-Supported Special Educators Across Higher- Versus Lower-Poverty Schools Over Time

“…Certification indicates a teacher has completed the requirements (typically coursework, licensure exams, and supervised teaching experience) deemed by their state as necessary to teach in a specific setting (Goldrick et al, 2014). Some evidence shows that the training indicated by special education certification does translate into more effective teachers (e.g., Feng & Sass, 2013), although not for all disability categories (Gilmour, 2020;Goldman & Gilmour, 2020). For example, Feng and Sass (2013) found that students with disabilities in Florida had slightly higher English language arts and math scores when taught by a special education certified versus a general education certified teacher.…”

Empowering A Career Transition Program Among Disabled Students: The Educators’ Experience

“…Readiness in Implementing Career Based Curriculum Approach Discussing the skills related to career advancement, the researcher found out that the practical career based teaching and learning is suitable to be implemented with the disabled. They may be able to master and apply the knowledge and skills learnt in a real world setting (Gilmour, 2019). Respondent 1 indicated that implementing career based curriculum is appropriate for the disabled students and it allows students to get jobs within a short period of time after they have completed their studies.…”