This American Educator Panels Data Note provides insights into teachers' perceptions of the supports available for helping students and whether teachers' access to these supports varies based on school characteristics. These supports include leadership, positive school culture, planning time, materials and tools, access to staff with expertise, access to students' families, training, access to student records, and transition planning protocols.

Students with Unique Learning Profiles

Do Teachers Have Adequate Support?

Tiffany Berglund, William R. Johnston

ResearchPublished Apr 10, 2020

Support from teachers is vital to the success of all students, but especially for students with unique learning profiles (ULPs). Therefore, the need to understand teacher support systems is particularly acute for teachers who work in schools with high rates of ULP students. Prior research has suggested that support from colleagues and experts, strong instructional leadership from principals, and positive school culture, as well as professional development and peer feedback, are key to these teachers' performance, job satisfaction, and career longevity. However, the nationwide prevalence of supports related to planning time and materials specifically geared to the needs of ULP students is much less clear, as is understanding of disparities in support access between teachers in schools with high versus low levels of student poverty. This Data Note uses data from the RAND Corporation's web-based American Educator Panel surveys to provide general insights into teachers' perceptions of the supports available for helping ULP students.

Key Findings

Teachers report good support — except for training, time to prepare

  • Most teachers who work with ULP students report having "mostly sufficient" or "completely sufficient" access to supportive school culture (84 percent), leadership support (74 percent), student records (74 percent), staff with specific expertise (67 percent), materials and tools (61 percent), and families of ULP students (60 percent).
  • Fewer teachers reported access to training and information (52 percent) or to time to prepare (48 percent).
  • Reported levels of support did not change based on school levels of poverty, school demographics, or school size.

Recommendation

  • More research is needed to understand potential disparities in teachers' access to support for ULP students.

Topics

Document Details

Citation

RAND Style Manual
Berglund, Tiffany and William R. Johnston, Students with Unique Learning Profiles: Do Teachers Have Adequate Support? RAND Corporation, RR-2575/7-1-BMGF, 2020. As of October 11, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2575z7-1.html
Chicago Manual of Style
Berglund, Tiffany and William R. Johnston, Students with Unique Learning Profiles: Do Teachers Have Adequate Support? Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2020. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2575z7-1.html.
BibTeX RIS

Research conducted by

The research described in this report was conducted by RAND Education and Labor and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. For this document, different permissions for re-use apply. Please refer to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation section on our permissions page.

This publication is part of the RAND research report series. Research reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND research reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.