Content area
Abstract
Although changes in education in the nation, under the No Child Left Behind, and in Kentucky, under the Kentucky Education Reform Act and Senate Bill 168, have made significant differences in accountability, certain fields remain challenging (Montgomery, 1995). Special education is considered the most severe critical shortage area facing the nation (Katsiyannis, et al., 2003). Consequently, it is not surprising that Kentucky continues to struggle with retaining the appropriate number of teachers certified in special education (Montgomery, 1995). The funding changes brought about by KERA and Senate Bill 168 enhance the special education program by providing greater resources for special education students and offering new incentives for inclusion opportunities within the regular classroom (Montgomery, 1995, Senate Bill 168, 2002).
The purpose of this study was to (a) identify, review, and summarize concepts in the literature that help explain influential factors in retaining teachers in special education, a critical shortage area; (b) prepare a descriptive narrative of events associates with the phenomenon in a school district in North Central Kentucky; (c) develop a set of naturalistic generalizations (Stake, 1995); (d) expand these naturalistic generalizations to a grounded theoretical explanation of factors influential in retaining special education teachers in a North Central Kentucky school district.
Data analysis revealed several factors that reflected study findings regarding the impact of differentiated compensation on special education teacher retention. These factors provided the foundations for a grounded theoretical explanation of the phenomena. Overall, the findings of this study can be summarized by the following statement: The impact of differentiated compensation on the retention of special education teachers in a school district in North Central Kentucky is limited by relationships with others, overall stress of the job, various forms of incentives occurring at the same time (i.e. extra service pay, tuition reimbursement, loan forgiveness, mentoring, student achievement advocates, et cetera), and a perception of change in the grant's purpose and how this relates to special education teachers' professionalism.
Keywords. Differentiated compensation, special education, teacher motivation, teacher retention, critical shortage.
