Impact of No Child Left Behind Act Mandates on the Roles of Paraprofessionals

As more and more paraprofessionals are hired in order to maintain or achieve the required educational benchmarks, the need for researchers to explore the field of paraprofessionals has greatly increased. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates have brought about increased requirements and certification for all paraprofessionals. Although these mandates have undergone extensive study, very little research has been conducted on how paraprofessionals feel this legislation has impacted them. The use of paraprofessionals in classrooms has grown substantially in recent years. Paraprofessionals assume a variety of roles, both in classrooms and in schools, as well as in special education and regular education. The procedures for this study included the use of a survey that was sent through interoffice mail to all certified paraprofessionals in the school system. Surveys were collected and analyzed using SPSS to create percentage and frequency tables, and chi-square tests were performed to discover if there was significance between the proportions of responses. This information thus supports the conclusion that the requirements of NCLB mandates have not had any major impacts on the roles of paraprofessionals in the selected school system. Similarly, paraprofessionals have not seen changes in their duties and 2 responsibilities, training, professional development, supervision/evaluation, support, and/or respect from the education community since these laws were enacted. Thus the answer to our overarching question is that the NCLB requirements did not impact the prevailing role of the paraprofessional. This research points to a lack of significant change in the role of the paraprofessionals studied as a result of NCLB.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education in Education Administration (Ed.D.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Leadership, Technology, and Human Development

Year dc:date.available

2007

Author dc:creator

• Coyne, Katherine Jane

Contributors dc:contributor

• Charles Reavis
• Abebayehu Tekleselassie

• ETD
• Paraprofessional
• No Child Left Behind
• Duties and responsibilities
• Teachers' assistants

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/237

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1237