Report: State Special Education Requirements for Teachers

Are general ed teachers prepared to teach students with disabilities?

A new report from the Institute of Education Sciences examines how the nine states and territories served by the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands (REL-NEI) prepare their general education teachers to teach students with disabilities. The report describes existing certification requirements for special education coursework and/or fieldwork for general education teachers in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The report -- downloadable here --  finds that eight of the nine jurisdictions require some coursework in teaching students with disabilities for initial licensure for general education teachers. Only New Hampshire does not currently mandate coursework or fieldwork in this area and its Department of Education is revising its regulations.

The report identifies eight content areas that one or more states and territories require teachers to study, including: (a) growth and development of exceptional children, which is required in seven jurisdictions; (b) instructional design, required in five jurisdictions; and (c) adapting, differentiating, accommodating, or modifying instruction, which is also required in five of the jurisdictions.

The report also describes commonalities and differences in how the states and territories require teacher candidates to develop special education knowledge:

• Four require teacher candidates to take an approved course focused on special education or teaching exceptional students.
• Four others require teacher candidates to demonstrate knowledge and skills in teaching students with disabilities but do not specify how teacher training programs meet this requirement.
• Two require general education teacher candidates to spend part of their student teaching experience working in classrooms with students with disabilities.

Watch for an upcoming webinar on the report: www.relnei.org/events.registration.php.

REL-NEI produced the report at the request of education officials in the Northeast and Islands Region. The federal 2004 U.S. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires that children with disabilities be educated alongside children without disabilities and in the “least restrictive environment.” Consequently, more than half of students with disabilities are educated in general education classrooms, and two-thirds of students receiving services under IDEA are in at least one course taught by general education teachers.

“States and territories in the Northeast and Islands Region have a range of 8 to 15 percent of their students requiring special education services,” said Project Leader Susan Mundry. “With over 50 percent of these students receiving 80 percent or more of their instruction inside regular classrooms, there is a growing need to ensure that general classroom teachers have the knowledge and training to serve these students effectively. Initial certification requirements in special education for all classroom teachers are one way this need is being addressed.”

The research team collected data from three sources: publicly available SEA documents related to certification requirements for general education teachers; a web-based database of state certification requirements, managed by the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification; and interviews with an identified certification official at each SEA in the region.

The report was written by Mundry, Candice Bocala, Daniel Mello, and Claire Morgan at Learning Innovations at WestEd, a REL-NEI partner. It can be downloaded at the IES website or relnei.org.