The Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education Workforce: Descriptive Evidence on Demographics and Turnover from Oregon. EdWorkingPaper No. 25-1347

Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. Brown University Box 1985, Providence, RI 02912. Tel: 401-863-7990; Fax: 401-863-1290; e-mail: annenberg@brown.edu; Web site: https://annenberg.brown.edu/

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Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (DHHS/NIH)
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

R01HH094007

Early Childhood Education; Early Childhood Teachers; Young Children; Early Intervention; Special Education; Special Needs Students; Students with Disabilities; Longitudinal Studies; Faculty Mobility; Teacher Persistence; Educational Legislation; Equal Education; Federal Legislation; Paraprofessional School Personnel; Teacher Recruitment; School Demography; Teacher Distribution

Early intervention (EI) and early childhood special education (ECSE) services for children with disabilities have expanded substantially across the U.S. over the past few decades, necessitating efforts to recruit and retain a qualified workforce to meet their needs. Despite widespread reports of staffing challenges in this sector, few contemporary studies provide large-scale evidence on this workforce. Using administrative data for all EI/ECSE employees in Oregon from 2008 to 2023, we provide longitudinal descriptive evidence on their composition, distribution, and stability. We show that the workforce has increased significantly, is growing more racially/ethnically diverse, and is more highly educated but less experienced than the state's K-12 workforce. Turnover remained fairly constant during this period, with the exception of paraprofessionals and non-licensed staff whose retention steadily declined to historic lows. Finally, we show that staff are distributed somewhat inequitably throughout the state, with areas serving more low-income students having the highest child-staff ratios and fewer highly-educated teachers/interventionists. Together these analyses contribute the first longitudinal portrait of an EI/ECSE workforce, providing key insights into their staffing dynamics at scale.

As Provided

2026

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