Allison Gilmour

American Institutes for Research | AIR

Drawing on eight waves of the Schools and Staffing Survey and the National Teacher and Principal Survey, we used a difference-in-differences research design to examine special education teachers’ (SETs) responses to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the subsequent reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA was ass...

Multitiered systems for supporting students’ behavior in schools rely on teachers using generally effective classroom management strategies, Tier 1 practices. However, few tools exist to easily assess classwide Tier 1 practices. In this brief report, we describe one potential tool, the Classroom Atmosphere Rating Scale–Brief (CARS-B), and assess th...

Recruiting and retaining effective special educators is essential for improving the outcomes of students with disabilities, yet it remains one of the foremost challenges facing special education. In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of the extent to which economic interventions – such as bonuses, increased salaries, and loan forgiveness...

School administrators make decisions that directly affect the educational context in which teachers work and students learn. In this commentary, we argue that addressing the burnout of individual special educators without attending to school working conditions may do little to improve teachers’ burnout and the outcomes of students with emotional/be...

Special education teacher shortages result in unqualified teachers working with students who have disabilities. Past research has focused on national shortages and the number of special education teachers in schools, but fewer studies have examined the number of new special education program completers, an important aspect of the potential special...

Growing numbers of students are educated in charter schools, including students with disabilities (SWD). Prior research suggests that charter schools educate a smaller percentage of SWD than traditional public schools, leading to a special education gap between sectors. We used data from a large urban district to examine how choice, mobility, and s...

We used five waves of nationally representative data over 16 years from the Schools and Staffing Survey, National Teacher Principal Survey, and Teacher Follow-up Survey to descriptively examine how the roles, responsibilities, preparation, and supports for special educators have changed over time. We then used regression to investigate how these va...

We examined the association between the percentage of students with disabilities (SWD) in general education teachers’ classes and their likelihood of turnover, investigating potential internal and external resources (certification, experience, preparation, classroom management, and working conditions) as moderators and disaggregating types of teach...

Scholars have documented long-standing disparities in access to well-qualified, well-supported teachers, including disparities in access to special education teachers (SETs), based on student socioeconomic status. In response, policy initiatives have aimed to incentivize teaching in higher-poverty schools. Thus, we examined changes over time in dis...

Using data from a nationally representative survey, we examined the sufficiency teachers’ access to supports available for meeting the needs of students with high incidence disabilities, their access to development opportunities, and the sources teachers used to access interventions. We explored differences in teachers’ experiences by grade band, s...

Teachers may have affective responses to teaching students with emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) that influence their effectiveness. We used latent profile analysis to examine the burnout profiles of 102 K-6 general education and special education teachers who had students with or at-risk for EBD in their classrooms. We then examined if profile...

Although typically taught by special educators, few studies have examined if certification area is associated with academic outcomes for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). The purpose of this study was to determine whether students with ASD scored better on language arts and mathematics state assessments depending on teacher certificat...

Self-monitoring is one of the most widely used and widely researched strategies for improving student behavior. However, specific research-based guidance about how to design effective self-monitoring interventions and to whom they should be delivered does not yet exist. To this end, we examined how various treatment components and participant chara...

Educational policies addressing instruction may fail to acknowledge that effective instruction is not the same for all learners. We reviewed teacher evaluation systems across all states and the 25 largest districts to determine how states and districts approach the evaluation of special education teachers, a policy aimed at improving teaching effec...

As the field moves toward adaptive and individualized behavior intervention, it is important to identify and consider relevant student characteristics as potential levers (i.e., critical factors) for improving intervention effectiveness. Motivated by previous findings suggesting that behavioral profiles and teachers’ perceptions of students with pr...

Retaining teachers is an important priority for school leaders, especially in special education, a field with chronic shortages. We analyzed a nationally representative survey using conservation of resources theory to examine how job demands and resources interacted with one another and with teachers’ assignments (i.e., as special and general educa...

More students with disabilities (SWDs) are being educated in general education classrooms than ever before, resulting in higher expectations for the abilities of general education teachers to meet SWDs’ educational needs. Yet few recent, quantitative studies have examined if teaching SWDs influences general education certified or special education...

Special education certification is used as an indicator of teaching quality in research, practice, and policy. The present study examined if 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 tau...

A major component of reading in subject areas is motivation to engage with text in different and specific ways. Yet, scant research captures fluctuations in adolescents’ daily reading motivation in subject areas or across diverse reading activities, important information for supporting discipline-specific reading performance. Thus, this study captu...

Many teachers struggle with the classroom management skills necessary to support students with disabilities. Teacher evaluation is a potential method for supporting teachers’ use of classroom management strategies. The authors evaluate the extent to which classroom management was included in state teacher evaluation rubrics and the types of classro...

Federal policies have aimed to improve access to grade-level curriculum for students with disabilities (SWD). Current conceptualizations of access posit that it is evidenced by students’ academic outcomes. In a meta-analysis of 180 effect sizes from 23 studies, we examined access as outcomes by estimating the size of the gap in reading achievement...

In the current study, we examined how student characteristics and cognitive skills, differing levels of text complexity (cohesion, decoding, vocabulary, and syntax), and reading comprehension question types (literal, inferential, critical analysis, and reading strategy) affected different types of reading outcomes (multiple-choice reading comprehen...

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act stresses the importance of educating students with disabilities (SWDs) in the least restrictive environment, often with peers who do not have disabilities. Prior research has examined the extent to which SWDs are included in general education classrooms, but not the characteristics of the peers with w...

Students with disabilities (SWDs) perform below their peers in math on national and state assessments. The quality of teachers who provide these students with math instruction is an unexamined variable that could influence this low achievement. We used data from more than 1 million students to compare the quality of teachers assigned to teach math...

Many schools are beginning to implement universal behavior management interventions as part of multitiered systems of support. Past research suggests that teachers need support to implement new practices with fidelity. Coaching is one method for supporting implementation, but little is understood about how coaching takes place when relying on schoo...

In 2009, the New Teacher Project’s The Widget Effect documented the failure of U.S. public school districts to recognize and act on differences in teacher effectiveness. We revisit these findings by compiling teacher performance ratings across 24 states that adopted major reforms to their teacher evaluation systems. In the vast majority of these st...

Purpose: New teacher evaluation systems have expanded the role of principals as instructional leaders, but little is known about principals' ability to promote teacher development through the evaluation process. We conducted a case study of principals' perspectives on evaluation and their experiences implementing observation and feedback cycles to...

Research has consistently demonstrated that students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) are at risk for academic underachievement. Despite the persistent and strong association between academic problems and EBD, there remains a dearth of information on the process for developing intensive academic interventions for students with EBD. The...