Special Education Teacher Preparation in Palo Alto

Public project summary

The average special education teacher makes less money than the average general education teacherBut ifSPED teachers have financial incentives that GenEd teachers don't, why do they make less money? The answer is that SPED teacher retention is shorter than those in GenED. This means that SPED teachers leave the field at such a rate that the average SPED teacher doesn't reach higher pay scales leading to more SPED teachers being new to their job therefore making less money. There are many possible reasons for the lack of SPED teachers, one such possibility is a lack of preparation/training. I chose to study that aspect of the problem because special education teachers usually leave within their first five years teaching. To gather data I'm surveying teachers in California about how prepared they feel for teaching and how the system could be improved. The survey will include multiple choice questions and free responses to get both qualitative and quantitative data. After gathering data coding will be used to find themes and statistical analysis will be used to summarize the themes.