Attrition in Special Education: Why Teachers Leave the Classroom and Where They Go

Teachers make their decision to leave the special education classroom for a variety of reasons. Comprehensive reviews of the teacher attrition literature suggest that researchers have been unable to clearly articulate why special education teachers leave the classroom. Furthermore, researchers know little about the effect of teacher attrition on individual schools and school systems because the majority of studies have failed to document teachers' exit paths. In this regard, we conducted phone interviews with 93 randomly selected Florida special education teachers who left the classroom. We designed the interview to determine their reasons for leaving the classroom, their current employment status, and their future career plans. Our results indicate that the largest portion of teachers who leave the classroom do so because they are dissatisfied with conditions of work. In addition, the majority of leavers remain in education. We discuss the implications of these findings for the special education field and make suggestions for retaining teachers in the special education classroom.