The "Personnel Development Program to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities" is authorized under Section 662 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and is known as the Personnel Development Program (PDP). The PDP is administered by the U.S. Department of Education's (ED's) Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. The program's purposes are: (1) to help address state-identified needs for highly qualified personnel in special education, related services, early intervention, and regular education to work with children with disabilities; and (2) to ensure that those personnel have the skills and knowledge needed to serve these children. The PDP provides training grants to institutions of higher education (IHEs) to support their efforts to directly prepare teachers, related services personnel, and leadership personnel. The PDP also funds a series of National Centers that indirectly support the preparation of personnel through capacity-building and the development of evidence-based products and services. ED's Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is authorized by Section 664 of IDEA to conduct evaluations of the implementation and impact of programs supported under IDEA. In 2007, IES awarded a contract to Westat to conduct a descriptive evaluation of the PDP through two distinct substudies--a substudy of PDP National Centers and a substudy of PDP training grant applicants. Chapter 1 provides background on the program. Chapter 2 of this report describes the design for the substudy of PDP National Centers, and chapters 3 and 4 present the corresponding findings overall and by center. Chapter 5 presents the design for the substudy of PDP training grant applicants, and chapter 6 presents the corresponding findings. Seven appendices include: (1) Semi-Structured Interview Protocol for Center Director; (2) PDP National Centers Inventory of Products and Services; (3) PDP National Centers Expert Panel Review Rubrics; (4) Institution of Higher Education Course of Study Survey; (5) PDP Training Grants Expert Panel Review Rubrics; (6) Expert Panel Review Inter-Rater Agreement; and (7) Technical Working Group Members. (Contains 68 tables, 16 footnotes, and 23 figures.)
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