Teach Effectively!

Many special educators are concerned about the effects of the US federal government’s requirement that all special education teachers responsible for teaching content, e.g., history, must be highly qualified. Although few would like to have the teachers of their children lowly qualified, the problem for special education teachers is that they are often responsible for teaching multiple subjects; they would thus be required to meet standards for being highly qualified in multiple areas—a daunting requirement when laid on top of knowing how to work with students with disabilities. My colleague Bev Johns has tirelessly raised questions about the highly-qualified requirement and her concerns made their way into a story by Maudlyne Ihejirika of the Chicago Sun Times (US).

New rules defining “highly qualified” teachers — expected to be approved
this week by the state Board of Education — may dissuade people from the profession while deepening the chronic shortage in special education, some critics say.

Board of Education’s Rules Committee today will consider guidelines proposed to meet a demand of the federal No Child Left Behind law that all teachers in core subject areas be “highly qualified” by the end of the 2005-2006 school year.

The rules are expected to be approved by the full board Thursday. They would require middle school, special education and some high-school teachers of more than one academic subject to pass as many as 10 different state evaluations, rather than an earlier proposed, single evaluation that would cover multiple subjects. There are exemptions.

“NCLB allows Illinois to offer one single multi-subject [evaluation] process for veteran teachers teaching multiple core academic subjects, but ISBE has not designed a process that will meet federal approval,” charged Bev Johns, chairwoman of the Illinois Special Education
Coalition.

This is an important issue for those of us concerned about the quality of teaching provided to students in schools. To the extent that the highly-qualified requirement drives effective teachers out of teaching, it will turn out to have the opposite effects that the US government officials hoped. To the extent that it forces more students with disabilities to receive their content-area instruction from teachers who meet the highly-qualified standard but do not know how to teach them effectively, it will be a bane to special education.

Link to the article by Ms. Ihejirika.