Education Week - January 27, 2016 - S8

EDUCATION WEEK

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January 27, 2016

Teacher-Recruitment Challenges

www.edweek.org/go/teacher-recruitment

By Christina A. Samuels

Colleges Seek Out Special Ed. Teachers
Partnerships aim to encourage potential candidates

We've got to be visible.
You don't just hide in
times of declining
enrollment."
JANET FISHER
Head of Special Education Department
Eastern Michigan University

it h t he ne e d for
special education
teachers in Utah
far outstripping the
supply, teacher educators at Utah State
University aren't
letting any potential prospects slip through the cracks.
For high school students, the university
has created a dual-credit class that allows
them to learn more about special education
while they also provide volunteer support
to their classmates with disabilities. A
highlight of the program is a visit to the
university's Logan campus, where the high
schoolers dine with university professors
who impress upon them just how much
they are wanted in the teaching profession.
For paraeducators who might be intimidated about the prospect of college but
who have valuable classroom experience,
the university is partnering with school
districts to pave their way into teacher
preparation. To break through the barriers, districts have found that hosting
appreciation events or awards programs
are a way to get their paraeducators all
in one room-and those events are also a
perfect time for university coordinators
to talk to them about becoming teachers.
Later, the university provides mentoring
to the paraeducators who choose to take
the next steps.
For career-switchers, the university offers a distance-learning program in special education, a boon to working adults
who may live in one of the state's far-flung
rural communities.
The overarching theme of the university's initiatives, said Robert L. Morgan, a
professor of special education who oversees
student recruitment, is that an enticing
brochure or a flashy website isn't enough
to bring would-be teachers in the door.
"If you have a teacher shortage in special education and you need people to be
coming into your teacher-preparation
programs, you have to go out and actively
recruit," Morgan said.

A Shortage Field
Utah is far from alone in facing a shortage
of special education teachers: It's been a nationwide problem for decades. For the 201516 school year, almost all states reported to
the U.S. Department of Education that they
would have special education shortages. In
a 2011 federal report, 51 percent of all school
districts and 90 percent of high-poverty districts reported difficulty in attracting highly
qualified special education teachers.
The issues that drive teachers from
special education-or that prevent some
would-be candidates from considering
the field-are multifaceted, said Mary
Brownell, a professor of special education
at the University of Florida.
Special education teachers report that
they have to teach more subjects than

their colleagues, that they don't always
feel supported by their administrators,
and that they aren't given the time and resources they need to do their jobs well, said
Brownell, who directs the federally funded
CEEDAR Center. CEEDAR stands for Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability and Reform, and was
created by the U.S. Department of Education's office of special education programs to
strengthen teacher preparation in the field.
Brownell says research shows that educators who are what she describes as "fully
trained" in special education are likely to
stay in the profession longer. Fully trained,
in this context, means having a college degree in the field or multiple hours of specialized post-baccalaureate work.

For the foreseeable future, however, traditional universities will remain districts'
main source for most special education
teachers, which means they have to devise
new ways to bring people into the field.
Janet Fisher, the head of the special education department at Eastern Michigan
University in Ypsilanti, one of the oldest
in the country, said that her colleagues
also try to entice potential teacher-candidates early.
"It's about letting your passion shine,
letting people know what it's like to work
in the very worthy field of special education," Fisher said. "We've got to be visible.
You don't just hide in times of declining
enrollment."

Time and Money

States, though, often find themselves
turning to more accelerated certification
routes, just to have educators available to
fill slots. Then those teachers leave after a
relatively short time, and the cycle of needing to fill those positions begins anew.
"You're solving an immediate need, but
you're creating a long-term continual need,"
Brownell said.
With that concern in mind, some special
education advocates are looking warily at a
new federal law that allows states to set up
teacher, principal, and school leader academies that could provide certifications equivalent to master's degrees. That provision,
part of the newly reauthorized Elementary
and Secondary Education Act, does not
spell out any minimum qualification levels,
leaving that up to states to determine.
Supporters say such academies would foster an innovative and vibrant market for
teacher preparation.
But Deborah Ziegler, the director of policy
and advocacy for the Council for Exceptional Children, says such programs could
ultimately connect the least-trained teachers with the most needy students.
"You could come in and do a short, several-month program of preparation and
then you're placed into a classroom and
then you do some ongoing mentoring," she
said. "Honestly, it's unfair to them. You
put teachers into a position that they can
barely handle and you've not prepared
them well enough to be in that position."

In addition to enthusiasm and direct
outreach, the types of partnerships Utah
State has worked out are an essential
part of the recruitment process, said Benjamin Lignugaris/Kraft, the head of the
department of special education and rehabilitation at the university.
Those partnerships take a long time to
establish, but the rewards can be worth
it. Around 100 Utah State graduates each
year seek licensure in special education,
and the university meets about half the
state's annual need for teachers in that
field. The university also partners with
other institutions of higher learning in
the state, referring students to them if for
some reason its own program might not
meet that potential recruit's needs.
Utah State's initiatives are financed
through an annual state allocation of
$200,000 to $300,000. Lignugaris/Kraft
said that during the recent economic
downturn, the state made plans to cut its
support, but university officials were able
to make a case for what would be lost by
ending the recruitment efforts.
"There has to be strong state support
for doing what we do. If that wasn't
there, none of this would be happening,"
Lignugaris /Kraft said. "It doesn't get
done for nothing. It requires support,
it requires funding, and it requires an
investment."
That investment has helped develop teachers such as Kjerstin Mourra, who works
with severely disabled students at Sky View
High School in rural, northern Utah.
Mourra attended Sky View herself and
worked as a peer tutor, enrolling in the
Utah State dual-credit course that allowed her to earn college credit while
getting a taste of what it would mean to
be a special educator. She then went on
to Utah State and returned to the school,
where she has taught since 2010.
Having that early experience helped her
gain some understanding of what it would
be like to be a teacher, Mourra said. "I definitely felt like the university was excited
about me and helped me to get excited
about working in special ed."

http://www.edweek.org/go/teacher-recruitment

Education Week - January 27, 2016

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