UIC Receives $1.14 Federal Grant to Address Special Education Teacher Shortage
According to researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), public schools nationwide face a shortage of special education teachers, disproportionately affecting minority students particularly in metropolitan areas like Chicago because of the large African American and Latino student body that exist there, and because minority students are placed in special education programs at a disproportionally higher rate than students of other ethnicities.
“A large percentage of these kids are African American and Latino who are impacted by this nationwide special education teacher shortage,” said Michelle Parker-Katz, Ph.D., Clinical Professor, Masters Programs Coordinator and Special Education and Teacher Education at UIC who took part in research on the matter. “Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is mirroring the dismal outcome that we see nationwide. This is terribly sad and terribly wrong, these inequities for students of color,” said Parker-Katz.
UIC received a $1.14 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to recruit and prepare seven doctoral students who will train special education teachers and who will also study students with disabilities in urban schools.
“For Congress to continue funding like this, the need is extreme,” Parker-Katz said. “Chicago has huge vacancies in elementary and high school special education, and there are only two special-education doctoral programs in Illinois.”
CPS spokesperson, Joel Hood responded to Parker-Katz statements saying that, "CPS is committed to providing a high quality education for every student in every part of the city. Due to a national shortage of qualified special education teachers and clinicians, the District continues to expand its recruiting pipeline to address the gap and fill our teacher positions. Through partnerships, including those with accredited universities, we can ensure that we are able to hire the most qualified professionals to deliver services that will accommodate the unique needs of all of our learners.”
CPS officials also provided the following strategies to address the shortage of special education teachers:
• CPS plans to visit 14 colleges and universities with special education programs in and out of state including Vanderbilt University, Michigan State University, UIC, and the University of Texas-Austin, and will hold recruitment fairs, informal on-campus information sessions with a staff members from CPS’s Office of Diverse Learner Services and Supports.
• Added six new out-of-state university partners as a way to expand exposure to potentially 400-500 additional spring graduates and thousands of future Special Education Teachers and is working with its alternative teacher certification pipeline programs to recruit and train candidates for high-need focus areas within special education, bilingual and early childhood special education.
• Transition more CPS student-teachers into CPS special education teachers through higher touch recruiting efforts, Diverse Learner information sessions, specialized job fairs, podcasts and a spring Social Media campaign.
According to Parker-Katz and Marie Tejero Huges, UIC associate professor of special education who partnered in the research, there are not enough qualified university professors, nationwide, currently training special education teachers.
Other factors related to the shortage include:
• Possibly 50 to 60 percent of special education faculty retiring within the next 10-15 years
• Higher standards for high school graduation
• More parents seeking special services for children who have difficulty meeting the higher standards required of students
• Children with special needs are being identified earlier, increasing the need for special education teachers for young children
• Many schools, particularly those in urban and rural areas, have difficulties recruiting and keeping special education teachers.
• A need to diversify faculty
• Shortage of diverse special education faculty affects recruitment and retention of teacher candidates, which impacts kids’ learning and the research possibilities to enhance that learning. Current university faculty and doctoral students do not represent the diversity that realistically exists.
• Only about 17% of faculty is from underrepresented groups and 8% are persons with disabilities. Of recent doctoral graduates only about 20% indicate that they were members of historically underrepresented groups which could very much impact recruitment and retention of students with diverse backgrounds and research done with students from diverse backgrounds.
“We need to train teachers in culturally sensitive kinds of teaching (methods) to address the challenges that all kids bring to learning. The number of teachers entering special education, whether black, brown or white, is decreasing,” Parker Katz said.
The second grant of this kind for UIC in the past seven years, the seven graduates of the first group are now doing research and training special education teachers at five Chicago-area universities, Parker-Katz said.
Parker-Katz stressed, “There’s a real need to diversify university faculty because it’s still majority white and only about 17 percent are from under-represented groups and that’s why the federal government continues to support the university with these grants. We know if we increase folks of color at universities it may attract students of color and also faculty of color to engage in additional research for students of color. I think diversity can help us in so many ways and can only strengthen preparation of teachers who can help us all. CPS in very much moving towards inclusionary education and is very much in line with special education changes,” said Parker-Katz.
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