Faculty members from UW-Madison are part of a new group of higher education leaders being brought together to examine ways to help school districts address the critical problem of recruiting and retaining special education teachers.
These efforts are being led by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), which is bringing together experts from 10 colleges and universities.
“Half of all schools and 90 percent of high-poverty schools struggle to find qualified special education teachers,” Jacqueline Rodriguez, AACTE’s assistant vice president who leads the new program, said in this news release. “Special education teacher shortages often have a disproportionate effect on English learners and African Americans who are overrepresented in special education. This initiative is critical for helping to improve access to learning for students with disabilities from all backgrounds and to better equip special education teachers to become more effective in the classroom.”
The AACTE project is called Reducing the Shortage of Special Education Teachers Networked Improvement Community (NIC).Andrea Ruppar, an associate professor with the School of Education’s Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education, led efforts to secure UW-Madison’s involvement with this project.
“Our department is involved with several initiatives to increase the number and diversity of special educators in the state,” says Ruppar. “While we already know quite a bit about the problem of special education teacher shortages, there is limited information available about effective solutions. Participating in the Networked Improvement Community will allow us to learn from and collaborate with other states and institutions. Together, we can identify and evaluate ways to make a meaningful impact on increasing the special education teacher workforce in Wisconsin and across the country.”
Participating institutions were selected based on several criteria, including each university’s commitment to increasing its recruitment into special education degree programs and for recruiting diverse candidates into these programs. The NIC members focus on ways to strengthen partnerships between colleges of education and P-12 schools to address special education teacher turnover, and to create new programs in partnership with P-12 schools to prepare and retain diverse special educators for specific vacancies.
In Wisconsin, Ruppar notes that special education has been identified as an area where there is a particular dearth of qualified teachers. She explains that over the last decade, the supply of certified special educators in Wisconsin has been far below school district demands – and the situation is getting worse.
Ruppar explains how she and her colleagues within the School of Education —including Kimber Wilkerson and Melinda Leko — are working hard to address the special education teacher shortage in Wisconsin. Wilkerson is a professor and the faculty director of the School’s Teacher Education Center. Leko is an associate professor who chairs the Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education.Ruppar highlights several current efforts in the School of Education to address the shortage of special educators, including programs with the Madison Metropolitan School District to identify paraprofessionals and other staff, as well as emergency-certified teachers, to work with them to become fully certified special educators. Another new initiative, funded by a Teacher Quality Partnership grant, gives the School of Education the opportunity to partner with seven rural school districts, as well as the urban School District of Beloit, to provide coursework and a year-long residency for special education teacher candidates.
Similarly, a research grant from the Spencer Foundation is allowing Ruppar and her colleagues to gather information about the experiences and needs of rural special education teachers.
In addition to UW-Madison, the nine other colleges/schools of education AACTE invited to participate in its new NIC are: Cleveland State University; Eastern Michigan University; Texas State University; University of Central Florida; University of Nebraska at Omaha; University of Northern Colorado; University of Oregon; Virginia State University; and Western Kentucky University.
AACTE is partnering with the Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability, and Reform (CEEDAR) Center to implement its Special Education NIC.