Education Week - December 5, 2018 - 12

Spending

$12.3
billion was
designated by the
federal government to
states in fiscal 2018 to
educate children ages
3-21 with disabilities.

$1,742
per child ages
3-21 is the federal
contribution,
equivalent to about
15 percent of the
national average
spent on a student
each year.

_______

Disability
Prevalence

39
out of every 100
students with
disabilities are
classified as having
a specific learning
disorder, which
includes dyslexia and
dyscalculia.

2
out of every 10,000
students with
disabilities is
classified as having
deaf-blindness, the
smallest category of
disabilities covered
under IDEA.

Priority: Preservice Training
There's a push to equip all teachers
with skills in special education arena
By Madeline Will

isa Nelson earned a master's degree in middle
school education and taught for five years. But
she never learned much about dyslexia until her
own daughter began struggling in school.
Nelson, who researched the condition and ultimately
referred her daughter for testing, was frustrated that
her daughter's teachers didn't identify the signs first.
And when she thinks back on the children she used to
teach in the late 1990s and early 2000s, she wonders
how many had learning disabilities that went unrecognized or unaddressed because she never learned about
the signs in her preservice program.
"Dyslexia is the most common learning disability. ...
If teachers are not getting training for the most common reading failure, then what percentage are getting
trained in anything else?" asked Nelson, who has since
co-founded the Massachusetts chapter of the advocacy
group Decoding Dyslexia.
Students with disabilities make up about 13 percent of
the public school student population, according to 201516 federal data. Because of the inclusion movement,
which says that students with disabilities should be
educated alongside their nondisabled peers, 63 percent
of those millions of students with disabilities spend the
majority of their day in general education classrooms.
Yet historically, many colleges of education have offered just one or two courses on special education for
their general education teacher-candidates. Advocates
say that's not enough to know how to teach students
with such learning disabilities as dyslexia or other
conditions like autism or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
"This is the first time in history where so many kids
with disabilities are being taught in general education
classrooms," said Michael Gottfried, an associate professor in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at
the University of California, Santa Barbara. "I do think
a lot of it is happening without so much preparation on
the teacher side."
But there's hope the tide is turning, educators say:
More colleges of education and state education departments are beginning to put a priority on teaching their
general classroom teachers how to work with students
with disabilities. After all, those students' success in

| Education Week * December 5, 2018

mainstream classes hinges in large part on their teachers, experts say.
"Even if you have a great special education teacher
[in the building], general education teachers need that
knowledge," Nelson said.

Beyond 'Special Education 101'
A 2009 federal report found that most traditional
teacher-preparation programs-and about half of alternative programs-require at least one course on
teaching students with disabilities for prospective general classroom teachers.
Still, about half the programs reported that they
needed more information or assistance on how to revise
their curriculum to better prepare teachers.
About 60 percent of elementary programs required
field experiences with students with disabilities, as did
just 28 percent of alternative routes. In fact, the type
of field experience most often required was to observe
teachers working with students with disabilities. Fewer
than one-third of programs required their preservice
teachers to work with students with disabilities during
their student-teaching experience.
Those numbers are dated, but experts aren't sure if
they've changed all that much.
As the number of students with disabilities who enroll in general education classes continues to grow,
however, programs are realizing that "this is important, and the techniques you have taught your general
education candidates may not be as maximally effective
as they need to be for students who are really struggling to learn," said Mary Brownell, the director of the
Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability, and Reform (or the CEEDAR Center).
The Florida-based CEEDAR Center has worked with
more than 20 states to help them enhance their teacher
education programs, among other reforms. A major
portion of that work focuses on ensuring that general
education teacher-preparation programs are training
teachers to serve all learners, especially those with disabilities, she said.
"The ideal would be that a lot of this information is
so well-integrated into your coursework, and you have
multiple opportunities to practice what you're learning,"
said Brownell, who is also a professor of special education at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "But more
than that, to me, the ideal is that you would then leave
your preparation program and then enter into a school
system built on [these principles]. ... These are very sophisticated skills we're asking teachers to have, and they

Education Week - December 5, 2018

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