Special education teacher employment began to decline in 2006, concurrent with increased paraprofessional employment. At the same time, the prevalence of students with disabilities in several categories changed substantially, and the proportion of students being served in general education settings increased as well. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the decline in special education teacher employment was related to increased paraprofessional employment, and if the increase in paraprofessional employment was related to shifts in the composition of students with disabilities, educational placements, or more general state-level factors. We created a panel dataset for 2006–2015 and analyzed these relationships using a two-way fixed effects model. We found that, although changes in paraprofessional employment were unrelated to changes in special educator employment, they were related to changes in the prevalence of students with autism spectrum disorder. In addition, states with larger populations and higher K12 expenditures employed more paraprofessionals.

2006 年特殊教育教师就业开始下降，同时辅助专业就业增加。同时，多类残疾学生的患病率发生了重大变化，接受普通教育的学生比例也有所增加。本研究的目的是确定特殊教育教师就业的下降是否与辅助专业就业的增加有关，以及辅助专业就业的增加是否与残疾学生、教育安置或更一般状态的变化有关。水平因素。我们创建了 2006-2015 年的面板数据集，并使用双向固定效应模型分析了这些关系。我们发现，尽管辅助专业就业的变化与特殊教育工作者就业的变化无关，但它们与自闭症谱系障碍学生患病率的变化有关。此外，人口较多且 K12 支出较高的州雇用了更多的辅助专业人员。