What's in a Name? "Highly Qualified" Special Educators

This is my response to the "On Special Education" blog entry Are Teachers in Training Good Enough for Special Ed.?  I've been thinking about this ever since I earned National Board Certification as an Early Adolescence Generalist, while teaching in a resource room.


I am a "career" special educator. I spent 20 years in the classroom, worked for a national non-profit organization on teacher quality issues for 5 years and I have been working on a PhD in special education to continue my work in support of quality special education. 

Picture of student's finger pointing to text on a page
Image: federico stevanin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In the past few years, I've heard and responded to proposals that would put students with disabilities in front of computers instead of human beings to provide instruction, I've heard of the increasing use of bright, inadequately prepared TFA recruits in special education settings, I've heard of special education interns (student teachers) being used as substitutes in special education settings, and I've heard about a variety of other "sow's ear into silk purse" solutions. I don't buy it, and neither should the general public.

The logic of these solutions eludes me. If we had a water shortage, we wouldn't drink substandard water; why should we accept the staffing of classrooms of our most needy students with substandard teachers? Ever since the oxymoronic term "highly qualified teacher" was defined, there's been an ever-increasing push to include more and more "non-teachers" under the umbrella of that term. "Highly qualified" implies, at minimum, that the teacher has credentials and has some expertise in the classroom where he/she is placed. 

Since NCLB (No Child Left Behind) requires that the vast majority of students be provided access to the general curriculum, with appropriate accommodations (in the case of students with disabilities), and requires assessment in their mastery of the content of the general curriculum, I'm of the opinion that we need to take a different approach to the staffing of special education positions. I think that special education certification should transition into an added endorsement, only obtainable by general education teachers who have mastery of the content that they teach, and sufficient experience that they are able to teach with some fluency.

If we regarded special education as a specialization in the same way that we regard instructional technology specialists, or reading specialists (most of whom hold advanced certification, beyond their initial credentials), we would likely have the "highly qualified" thing line up better for special educators. IDEIA 2004 (Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act) requires that secondary special educators have both content and special education credentials. Why do we keep expecting that a four to five year initial credential would even approach preparing special educators? 

It's no secret that we have chronic shortages of special educators; we've had that since I was a newly-hatched special educator in the '70s. I think that Alexa Posny's claim of a special educator shortage makes a false connection. It's not retirement that we have to fear, it's the overwhelming attrition rate among special educators that has been the cause of the shortages. So, I would advocate for an intensification of the standard for "highly qualified" special educators, not a loosening of the standards to allow any warm body to staff our special education positions. We need special educators with solid foundations in content and a broad repertoire of skills in building access to that content in multiple ways.

Kathleen Kosobud, National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT)
Doctoral Candidate in Special Education, Michigan State University
Immediate Past President, LDA of Michigan