State-Level Efforts to Recruit and Retain Qualified Special Education Personnel Including Related Service Providers

Recruitment and retention of qualified education personnel remains an ongoing challenge, and all 50 states have reported teacher shortages of qualified special education and related services personnel. According to the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (NCCTQ, 2006), the need for qualified special education teachers will continue to rise faster than all other types of teaching personnel through 2014. In response to the challenge to recruit and retain qualified special educators and related service providers, states and localities have implemented a range of recruitment and retention strategies. The purpose of this document is to describe some of the strategies states are using. A collaboration between Project Forum at the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) and the Personnel Improvement Center (PIC) at NASDSE, this document was completed as part of Project Forum’s and PIC's cooperative agreements with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP).