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We used data on the student teaching placements, degrees, teaching credentials, and workforce outcomes of more than 1,300 graduates of special education teacher education programs in Washington to provide a descriptive portrait of specific measures of special education teacher preparation and their relationships with workforce entry and early-career retention. Although rates of workforce entry and retention for these special education candidates were high, we documented considerably lower rates of entry into and retention in special education teaching positions for candidates who hold a dual endorsement in special education and another subject. These patterns have potential implications for the state's new dual-endorsement requirement and for dual-licensure programs more broadly. Student teaching with a cooperating teacher who is endorsed in special education was also associated with a higher likelihood of becoming a special education teacher, even when controlling for whether the placement was in a special or general education setting.

We used longitudinal data on high school students in Washington State to assess the relationships between English Language Arts (ELA) teacher qualifications and the high school and postsecondary outcomes of their students, and whether these relationships differed for students with and without disabilities. We found that students assigned to 10th-grade ELA teachers with higher value added had better test scores, were more likely to graduate on-time, and were more likely to attend and graduate from a 4-year college than observably similar students assigned to 10th-grade ELA teachers with lower value added. We also found that many of these relationships varied for students with and without disabilities, as 10th grade ELA teacher value added was more positively predictive of on-time graduation and 4-year college attendance for students without disabilities, but more positively predictive of 2-year college attendance and employment within 2 years of graduation for students with disabilities.

We used longitudinal data from Washington State to investigate the relationships among career and technical education (CTE) enrollment, inclusion in general education, and high school and postsecondary outcomes for students with learning disabilities. We replicated earlier findings that students with learning disabilities who were enrolled in a "concentration" of CTE courses had higher rates of employment after graduation than observably similar students with learning disabilities who were enrolled in fewer CTE courses. We also found that students with learning disabilities who spent more time in general education classrooms in high school had higher rates of on-time graduation, college attendance, and employment than observably similar students with learning disabilities who spent less time in general education classrooms in these grades.

In their best seller, "Freakonomics", University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and "New York Times" writer Stephen Dubner show in an amusing and often provocative manner how an economic way of thinking can be useful in explaining all sorts of real-world phenomena. Their central insight is very simple: incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. As economists, it's no surprise that they take this proposition as the starting point in their effort to understand the educational research enterprise in the United States. By some measures, the enterprise is quite healthy. In terms of the "quantity" of completed research, it's booming, and barely a week goes by without a major national media outlet reporting on the latest finding of educational research. Unfortunately, the bulk of educational research neither is outcomes-oriented nor uses methods that support strong inferences about causality. Despite an emphasis on randomized research designs (for example, by the U.S. Department of Education) and on the use of sophisticated quasi-experimental methods (particularly those using comprehensive student-level longitudinal data), the proportion of the entire educational research enterprise that would pass muster for scientific rigor in other fields is shockingly small. Consequently, for policy makers striving to craft effective policies, the research base remains thin. In this article, the authors explore some of the reasons for this. Here, they examine the "market" for educational research using a supply and demand framework. In this case, the consumers are the policy makers, educators, and parents who "demand" research evidence to help them make critical choices about how to allocate resources, how to teach kids, how to choose schools, and so on. The suppliers of educational research are the individuals and organizations that produce the studies, reports, and findings. (Contains 6 endnotes.)