| Even before the passage of Public Law 94-142, the Education of All Handicapped Children Act in 1975, the demand for special education teachers in America's public schools has been greater than the supply (Thornton, Peltier, & Medina, 2007). Today, researchers, policy makers, and administrators struggle to recruit and retain highly qualified special education teachers. Researchers have investigated and considered a variety of factors (e.g., demographic and personal, employment, and external) that have an impact on the attrition rates of special education teachers. The purpose of this investigation was to study the employment patterns of recent masters graduates of a Midwestern university special education program in order to learn more about their employment decisions and the factors that influenced their decisions.;Graduates (1997-2007) from the special education program were asked to complete an on-line survey (160 responded) and their responses were used in an attempt to answer three research questions related to the demographic and personal factors, employment factors and external factors proposed by Billingsley (1993) that affect special education teacher attrition. The research findings indicated administrative support, commitment, and job satisfaction showed significant relationships to the attrition of special education teachers. |
