{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/special-education-teachers-secondary-school/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Special Education Teachers, Secondary School", "soc_code": "25-2058", "category": "Education", "us_employment": 163930, "median_annual_wage": 74260 }, "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 73, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 13, "embodiment": 14, "liability_shield": 14, "trust_premium": 17, "judgment_accountability": 15 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "At 13 rather than 16, the split is honest: a model can generate the annual goals, the quarterly progress narratives, and the transition-services language, but nobody automates a 45-minute co-taught geometry block where you're re-teaching in the moment, or a functional behavior assessment that requires you to watch a student across four settings to find the antecedent.", "embodiment": "14 reflects that the room is not controlled — hallway crises, physical prompting for life-skills and vocational tasks, restraint or escort under state training protocols, community-based instruction on public transit — but it stays below the 17-plus band because a meaningful share of your week is still IEP meetings and desk-bound documentation.", "liability_shield": "State special-education licensure plus IDEA's requirement that a qualified provider deliver the services means your name is on the IEP that a hearing officer can rule inadequate, and a compliance failure follows your certificate — the 14 rather than 18 is because the district and the LEA representative absorb the financial and legal exposure, not you personally.", "trust_premium": "17 is earned because parents who have been through years of fights over placement decide whether to sign based on whether they trust you specifically, and a student with emotional disturbance will work for the one adult who has not given up on them and refuse everyone else — that continuity across grades 9-12 is the intervention, not a delivery mechanism for it.", "judgment_accountability": "15 covers the calls with no procedure to hide behind: whether a behavior is a manifestation of disability, when to recommend a more restrictive placement, whether a 17-year-old goes to a diploma track or a certificate, and when a report to child protective services is warranted — each defensible only through your documented reasoning." }, "rationale": "The paperwork half of this job — drafting IEP goal language, progress-monitoring summaries, accommodation checklists, transition-plan boilerplate — is exactly what current AI drafts competently, and that is real relief for a role notorious for after-hours documentation. The other half is physically present work with teenagers who have autism, emotional disturbance, or intellectual disabilities: de-escalating a crisis in a hallway, running behavior-intervention plans, hand-over-hand skill instruction, and co-teaching in a general-ed classroom. IDEA gives the IEP legal force and states require a licensed special educator on the team, so a human signs and is answerable to parents and due-process hearings.", "outlook": "By 2035 the documentation load shrinks meaningfully while caseloads and behavioral-support demand grow, so headcount holds and the job becomes more hands-on and less clerical.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State education agency guidance or an IDEA reauthorization provision explicitly requiring that AI-generated IEP content be reviewed and signed by the named licensed special educator, with the signature admissible in due-process hearings — several states (e.g. California, New York) have already issued AI-in-education guidance touching on IEP drafting, and OSEP has been asked for clarification on whether AI-drafted IEPs satisfy the 'individualized' requirement.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "A due-process or OCR ruling finding a district out of compliance because an IEP was substantially AI-generated without individualized human determination, prompting districts and their insurers to mandate documented educator authorship of goals and placement decisions.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Restraint-and-seclusion reporting laws (expanding in states like Illinois and Texas) plus manifestation-determination review requirements naming the special educator as an accountable decision-maker on discipline and placement calls concentrate the role's consequential-call ownership as documentation is automated.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier structure: if AI absorbs goal-bank drafting, progress summaries and transition boilerplate, the residual day is crisis de-escalation, behavior-intervention fidelity, parent conflict, and co-teaching negotiation — none currently automatable. No law needed; this is task-mix shift.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Parent-advocacy pressure (COPAA, disability-rights groups) producing district commitments that IEP meetings be conducted by humans and that parents can refuse AI-drafted plan content — trust premium here is exercised by parents through due-process leverage rather than purchase.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 1 } ], "ceiling_note": "Already high; headroom is small. Trust premium is near ceiling because the buyer is a public district under legal obligation, not a discretionary purchaser. Embodiment cannot rise — the physical work is already the bulk of the non-paperwork day. Downward pressure exists too: staffing shortages and paraprofessional substitution could dilute the licensed-signer requirement in practice even if it stays on paper." }, "adjudication": { "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict", "outcome": "corroborated", "run_totals": [ 73, 74 ], "run_verdicts": [ "SAFE", "SAFE" ] }, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2019, "emp": 143170, "wage": 61710 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 142500, "wage": 62320 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 145690, "wage": 62120 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 152490, "wage": 63560 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 158150, "wage": 66620 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 162780, "wage": 69590 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 163930, "wage": 74260 } ], "from": 2019, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 14.5, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": false }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }