Special Education Today Newsletter 3(11)
What was happening during the previous week?
Here we have Special Education Today Newsletter 3(11) for 11 September 2023. Howdy, hello, and welcome.
The structure and contents of this issue will not surprise regular readers, but those readers may be weary of me mentioning the organization pretty much every week. Please skip the following sentence if you’re tired of it: This issue has a little eye candy followed by a list of last week’s posts, followed (in turn) by notes about SET’s status, and then a little commentary.
The photo for this issue of the newsletter harkens back to those I’ve posted in the past about watching hawks migrating along the Blue Ridge Mountains. The image shows a standing marker at the Rockfish Gap watch site. The sign serves as a brief guide for guests, providing (top to bottom) a brief introduction; images of the types of birds that are often seen at the site; answers to frequent questions about migration; a large, panoramic photo with a guide to the landmarks that regular gawkers use in helping each other to know where to look for birds (“I have three birds over the Parkway, about half a glass up...”); and some data about the counts.
I plan to visit the watch site repeatedly this week. Although the weather forecast does not look promising (too much rain), the skies may clear and the birds may suddenly move. If there’s a lot of activity, I want to be there!
This past week I posted messages to the SET Web site, as usual. Often, I send notices via the email list to subscribers, but I don’t always do so. Interested readers can wait until the weekly newsletters to see them, but those who are interested can see even those that are not emailed by simple visiting the site regularly.
The rear-view mirror
Special Education Today Newsletter 3(10): If you missed any posts for the week just passed, don't fret—here's a list of them
Aphorisms, sayings, & such #6: Shall we praise skepticism?
Music school for individuals with disabilities: What's going on at the Institute for Accessible Arts Education?
Status update
SET continues to bump along just a bit below the level of 600 subscribers. For most of the month of August, the graph just went sideways, not up or down, but horizontal. There was a little activity this week, and that is a cause for me to issue a “Thank you very much” to the two new paid subscribers. Wonderful help! Yay! Hooray!
Also, special thanks to those who have been weighing in on the Chat board. That space is a bit more wide opne and wooly than the main site. It’s more like the medium formerly known as TW. There are lots of open threads on the Chat site, not just posts connected to SET. Once you get over there, though, you can look for me by name and see what I and a few intrepid others (Tina, Vicki, and Corey) have discussed so far. Mostly it’s just considering possibilities, but I hope to engage in at least one of the topics suggested so far (school avoidance or the connections between evaluations and interventions) in the coming days.
Comments
Readers will not be surprised to learn that the shortage of qualified special education teachers has been a frequent topic in the news recently.
An Omaha, Nebraska, TV station reported that “[although] the teacher shortage is a statewide and nationwide issue... some Nebraska legislators want to know why the lack of special education teachers has become a larger issue in Omaha’s most disadvantaged community.” Lawmakers planned to discuss the topic and a news source from Lincoln reported that members of the state legislature “grilled” local education agency officials about plans to reassign “special nees students to different schools” as a way to address teacher shortages.
In New York City, New York, according to Michael Elsen-Rooney of Chalkbeat, schools hiring for “the role of high school special education teacher fell hundreds short of the number of open positions.”
In Las Vegas, Nevada, according to the staff of The Nevada Globe, “The shortage of special education teachers is central to the contract negotiations between CCSD and the Clark County Education Association.”
This list could continue for many more entries.
What’s to be done? Of course, as I’ve indicated before, increasing compensation would be an obvious place to begin. As a starter for discussion, how about doubling teachers’ (not just special educators’) salaries? And, then, how about providing hefty bonuses for qualified special educators—say $18,000 per year.
But, it’s not only about compensation. How about making time for special educators to teach, to conduct lessons, rather than having to spend their time on paperwork and planning schedules for teaching assistants who accompany students to general education classrooms? Would it hurt to give teachers of our students one period a day free from other duties so that they can actually plan for the coming days’ education rather than having to do it while wolfing lunch or overseeing playground periods?
While I'm at it, I don’t want to absolve the higher education programs that are supposed to “train” (“Sit up.” “Roll over.” “Speak.”) special education teachers. Those programs need to be more efficient (prospective teachers don’t need a class in how to play “Red Rover, Red Rover...Send Johnny Over” or extensive debates about where education fits into the fabric of society). Intensively supervised practice in how to employ, with fidelity, teaching practices that have been documented to be beneficial for learners would be much more useful.
I’ve not presented an exhaustive catalog of reforms. I suspect that some teachers (and some administrators, too) who read SET have some fine ideas about addressing teacher shortages. I hope some of those readers will drop recommendations in the comments. And I hope that educators will listen to the suggestions.
Meanwhile, I encourage everyone to take care of herself (e.g., wear those seatbelts), take care of others, and teach our children well...’cause that’s what it is about.
JohnL
SET Editor guy
Charlottesville
SET should not be confused with a product with the product that uses the same name and is published by the Council for Exceptional Children. SET predated CEC’s publication by decades. Despite my appreciation for CEC, this product is not designed to promote that organization.