Bridge Funding Helps UW–Madison Advance Statewide Special Education Efforts

July 2, 2026   |   By Karen Rivedal, Office of Research & Scholarship Communications

A timely infusion of bridge funding enabled UW–Madison program evaluators over the past year to sustain and expand crucial work supporting induction and mentoring programs for the state’s special education workforce.

The replacement money, triggered by the loss of a federal grant, totaled $60,000 in matching funds from the School of Education and university research dollars. It paid for six months of work by the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative (WEC) — based in the school’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research — to finish a key part of an evaluation plan aimed at strengthening statewide programs from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to help retain early-career special education teachers and directors in school districts.

WEC’s Carmen Bartley, a qualitative researcher and evaluator, supervised the six months of work on the special education director program evaluation, from October 2025 to March 2026. It started soon after the $10.5 million, five-year federal grant to address chronic staffing challenges around special education teachers and directors was rescinded.

Bartley credited the bridge funding for allowing WEC to continue its work to better ensure special education programs serve students, plus a more strategic benefit.

“Being able to maintain a supportive relationship with DPI and its partners is invaluable,” Bartley said. “When they do have restored funding, they’re coming right back to us for evaluation, because we’ve been good partners.”

DPI consultant and former Director of Special Education Barbara Van Haren leads work to address special educator retention challenges, managing the state’s induction programs offering coaching, mentoring and professional development for early-career special education teachers and directors. Van Haren said the bridge funding was “a lifeline” in providing “critical data analysis” for developing the program for directors, which was piloted with a select group in spring 2026 as Wisconsin’s Induction Program for Special Education Leadership (WIPSEL).

WEC used most of the funding to analyze feedback from focus groups held under the terminated grant with veteran special education directors and higher education experts. DPI used the analysis to help understand what to include in WIPSEL to complement, but not duplicate, existing services and training programs.

“Without WEC’s continuation of data analysis, DPI and its partners would not have been able to zero in on the needs of new special education leaders or develop the content and structure of the program,” said Van Haren. “Based (in part) on WEC’s data, DPI is excited to launch WIPSEL in September 2026 with 27 new special education leaders participating.”

Deb Wall works with the Wisconsin Council of Administrators of Special Services (WCASS), a DPI partner in providing the induction program for special education directors, along with the Regional Special Education Network (RSN), which operates across Wisconsin’s 12 Cooperative Educational Service Agencies (CESAs).

Wall said WEC’s work under the bridge funding enabled the induction program to identify important planning factors.

“It provided our team with a comprehensive overview of the focus group sessions,” Wall said. “This information was instrumental in helping all aligned groups plan the next steps for the program for 2026–27.”

Bridge Funding Brings New Work, Revised Proposal

The bridge funding also led to a year of new work between WEC and DPI. The contract started July 1 and focuses on WEC evaluating induction support for new special education teachers and, by extension, the vulnerable student population they serve in Wisconsin public schools.

“This topic is a challenge, both from a staffing issue — getting and keeping good special ed teachers — and in the work those folks do on a daily basis, working to improve the achievement of kids who have really struggled in schools for a long time,” said WEC Co-Director Brad Carl. “If you look at achievement gaps between students with IEPs [Individualized Education Programs, which are legally binding documents outlining tailored special education instruction for students] and those without IEPs, those gaps are massive.”

Funding for this program was also lost due to the rescinded federal grant and is being replaced with repurposed internal DPI dollars.

“The bridge funding allowed us to work with DPI while its leaders identified their replacement funding,” said Carl, principal investigator for all the DPI work. “For the special ed teacher program, it covers what would have been year two of the terminated grant.”

Finally, the bridge funding also bought WEC time to help DPI reapply for the rescinded federal grant. Administered under the U.S. Department of Education’s State Personnel Development Grant competition, the new award, if approved, would run a full slate of special education support programs and WEC evaluation of them over the next four years.

The revised proposal was submitted on June 12 and will be decided in the fall.

“There are high hopes it will be approved,” Carl said. “A lot of the same partners are involved, and it's written very closely to the guidelines of the program.”

WEC has partnered with DPI for nearly 10 years to help evaluate programs that support special education teachers and directors in their early careers, when they are most at risk of quitting.

“We know turnover rates are high,” Carl said, particularly in outlying rural areas and large urban environments.

At the UW–Madison School of Education, researchers can request up to six months of bridge funding. They can use the money to safely wind down a project or in cases in which a short-term infusion of funding can produce significant research benefits, such as when a study is nearing its end or when final data collection is needed before results can be published.

“Bridge money like we received is critical to continuing good work for the communities we serve, especially in these uncertain fiscal times,” said Brie Chapa, a data scientist and WEC co-associate director.

Beyond the induction programs, the rescinded grant also included partner programs to help special education teachers with short-term or emergency credentials become fully licensed, create an online database of resources for special education teachers and families, and develop a social media campaign to recruit new special education teachers.

About the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative (WEC)

WEC conducts and supports program evaluations within education and community systems through partnerships with school districts, professional associations, state agencies, education-based community organizations, and Cooperative Educational Service Agencies. For more information, visit wec.wceruw.org.

About the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER)

WCER at UW–Madison’s #1-ranked School of Education is one of the world’s oldest and most productive education research centers. WCER has supported researchers and scholars in developing, submitting, conducting and sharing grant-funded education for over 60 years. Learn more at wcer.wisc.edu.