Failed policy: causes, impacts, and lessons learned

Failure of Special Education

The Failure of the Current System of Special Education Teachers

Many new schools are popping up all over the country which specialize in the education of specific cases of students with learning disabilities. This is both positive and negative growth for a variety of reasons. Most teachers employed in special education programs are trained within one area of expertise, which leaves out a majority of the special needs population. With the shortage in certified special education teachers, essentially thousands of special needs students are not getting the proper assistance they need in order to fulfill State standards. Many teachers who were trained in one particular area are now filling the teacher shortage, and this leaves many special needs students in the hands of professionals who were not trained how to deal with wider variations of disabilities; the school system of the United States is essentially failing in its obligations to its special needs populations.

A large number of special education teachers "work with mild to moderate disabilities, using the general education curriculum, or modifying it, to meet the child's individual needs," (U.S. Department of Labor). These general education standards do not always provide the best academic strategies to fit the needs of many special needs students who have proven their inability to respond to more general education practices. Various special needs students are then grouped into various categories of physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. These categories include trouble with speech, learning disabilities, behavioral issues, autism, and physical disabilities, "Students are classified under one of the categories, and special education teachers are prepared to work with specific groups," (U.S. Department of Labor). Every state in the United States requires special education teachers to hold special licenses. Many states implement a system where teachers are required to get normal certification, and then choose one field of disabilities as the specialty they are specifically trained to work with. Therefore teachers are being confronted with a variety of disabilities and working with them through the narrow knowledge of their training based on one particular focus. Certified special education teachers are in great demand, and many are forced to work out of their range of expertise in order to fill broader positions.