What Every Must Know Special Educator - Council for Exceptional ...

Section 2: Assuring Well-Prepared Special
Education Professionals
The education of teachers must be driven by:
• a clear and careful conception of the
educating we expect our schools to do,
• the conditions most conducive to this
educating (as well as conditions that get in
the way), and
• the kinds of expectations that teachers must
be prepared to meet.
Goodlad, 1990
From its earliest days, the Council for Exceptional
Children (CEC) recognized the significance of professional
standards to the quality of educators, and
CEC accepted responsibility for developing and
disseminating professional standards for the field of
special education. At the first meeting of CEC in 1922,
the establishment of professional standards for teachers
in the field of special education was identified as
one of the primary aims of CEC. In 1965, CEC held a
national conference on professional standards, but it
was not until 1981 that the CEC Delegate Assembly
charged CEC to develop promote and implement
preparation and certification standards along with
a professional code of ethics. In its current strategic
plan, CEC reiterates this commitment to professional
standards leadership by identifying the promotion of
professional standards that support high quality teaching
and learning as a way to advance the education of
individuals with exceptionalities.
In 1988, the CEC Delegate Assembly recognized the
relationship between the skills and knowledge with
which special education teachers enter the profession
and the quality of educational services for individuals
with exceptionalities. More recently, the significance of
the well-prepared teacher as the within-school variable
having the greatest influence on a student’s learning
has been widely documented and recognized.
However, for at least 3 decades, the issue of the quality
preparation and continuing development of special
educators has been overshadowed by a chronic and
severe shortage of personnel to deliver special education
services (Boe, Cook, & Sunderland, 2008). As any
special education administrator knows, the shortage
of available well-prepared special educators overshadow
the quality issue. They know the dilemma
of having to use unqualified personnel. They worry
about the negative consequences on the learning of
individuals with disabilities. They fear the violation
of the trust of parents and families when they call
unqualified individuals special educators. And they
harm their collegiality with fully licensed and wellprepared
teachers. Figure 2.1 shows that the number
of individuals practicing special education without
appropriate preparation has continued to grow since
the about 1993. The most recent data from the U.S.
Education Department (ED) to the U.S. Congress puts
the number of unqualified individuals practicing special
education of over 50,000, a larger number than the
total CEC membership. Even a conservative estimate
is that the shortage of well-prepared special educators
directly influences the learning of over a million
children with exceptionalities.
In addition, retaining the well-prepared special
educators has been made difficult by negative working
conditions (Billingsley, 2006; CEC, 2000, Gersten,
Keating, Yovanoff, & Harness, 2003). The percentage
of special educators who leave special education each
year is almost double the rate of educators in general.
In fact, over half of all entering special educators leave
special education before their fifth year of practice.
Although very little data is available regarding what
proportion of these leavers are less than fully prepared
special educators, Rosenberg and Sindelar, (2003) have
pointed out that it is likely that many of these individuals
cycling in and out so quickly are individuals
who are not fully prepared and licensed.
The recent emphasis in federal legislation in the
United States on accountability and high expectations
What EvEry SpECial EduCator MuSt KnoW