What’s driving a special education teacher shortage and how schools are responding

John Yang:

Seven and a half million American students, or roughly 15 percent of them, have disabilities that qualify them for special instruction, what's known as individual education plans. But teachers trained in this critical area are in short supply.

At the beginning of the current school year, 70 percent of schools surveyed said they had openings for special education teachers. We asked special education teachers and administrators to tell us how the shortage is affecting them.

Maryellen Robinson, Massachusetts:

You're spread thin and you're working with a student on a lesson to meet their academic goals, but you're also thinking about the student behind you who's working on maybe feeding or they're getting their medications, and you're thinking, how can I support that student when I'm working with another student?

My name is Maryellen Robinson. I am a special education teacher for students who have complex support needs in Boston, Massachusetts.

Sarah Davis, Minnesota:

My name is Sarah Davis. I'm a special education teacher in Minnesota, and I teach emotional and behavioral disorders. They have gone so far as to reach out to a temp agency to bring in para educators, which it helps having bodies in the building, but it's not the same as having a teacher who know, trained, and has specialized in behaviors and mental health.

Amy Quellette, Michigan:

My name is Amy Quellette. I'm in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. I'm a retired school teacher.

Nadene Stein, Massachusetts:

I'm Nadene Stein, assistant superintendent for pupil services for the Waltham Public Schools in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Amy Quellette:

It breaks your heart every single day as a teacher to know that you still needed more time with a student. And not only does it break your heart, but I could cry every single day worrying about the kids and that they need more time.

Nadene Stein:

I always have big box Kleenex in my office. That's part of my job. But usually when someone is upset about something, we can work together and we can figure out a solution that is going to benefit people and we can move forward. This year, I don't have a solution because I don't have people.

Sarah Davis:

The staffing shortage really makes me question if I want to spend the rest of my career in this setting.

Maryellen Robinson:

It makes me feel so sad knowing that there's such a shortage of people who want to go into this field and working with students like my own.

Amy Quellette:

I really loved really working with those kids who were struggling, building that relationship and helping them see that, hey, this is a positive thing and I can help you through this. And then those successes, even though they feel very small, are huge for those students.

Nadene Stein:

We got to do a very much better job celebrating these people and thanking them and supporting them, because I don't want them to leave. Let's get past this bump and with always the hope that it's got to get better next year. It has to get better.

John Yang:

The voices of special education teachers and administrators. Kimber Wilkerson is a professor of special education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kimber, we heard in that tape some of them talk about the burnout factor, that they are just so frazzled from all they have to do. How big a factor is that in the shortage?

Kimber Wilkerson, University of Wisconsin Madison: I think the job of being a special educator is a meaningful job that provides a lot of satisfaction. But the stresses and the pressures on teachers in schools right now, they are real. So it definitely contributes to people leaving their jobs faster than they might have in the past.

John Yang:

So in addition to that sort of burnout, because of all they have to do, what are the other factors that are behind this shortage?

Kimber Wilkerson:

You know, overall, in the last 10 years or so, there's been kind of an increase in this shortage of educators, and that's across the board. But special education has always been hit sort of the hardest of all the education professions ever since it became a thing in the 70s.

And so I'd say over the last ten years or so, there's been kind of an erosion in the public's view of teaching as a desirable profession, maybe some erosion of benefits and autonomy that teachers experience. So those things combine to create a public narrative that makes teaching and maybe special education less desirable than it was in the past.

John Yang:

Now, federal law guarantees students with disabilities an appropriate public education. How is the shortage affecting that?

Kimber Wilkerson:

The shortage of special educators has an impact on the quality of services that students with disabilities receive. Obviously, when special educators are spread more thin. So maybe in a school where there used to be three special educators for the middle school band, and now we're down an educator, and so you have two or sometimes even one special educator who's now serving that whole population.

Of course, that person's caseload is going to be higher, and the amount of individual attention that they're going to be able to give to specific students is decreased.

John Yang:

What are some of the things that schools are doing to try to bridge this gap, that bridge the shortage?

Kimber Wilkerson:

Schools in states have been sort of forced to be as creative as possible. In some cases, they're making it easier to become a special educator or a teacher. I don't personally think those are the best solutions because what it tends to do is bring in people who are less qualified and that less quality of preparation makes them burnout even faster and provide more poor quality services to kids.

But there are some really creative solutions in terms of trying to provide supports to career changers or people who work in schools already. Some of these are called grow your own programs, where they might take special education paraprofessionals and provide them with the education that they need to be certified. And these are individuals who've already been working with students with disabilities and already have kind of a commitment to that school community.

John Yang:

What should be done or what can be done to resolve this problem?

Kimber Wilkerson:

There are some efforts in different states to increase pay for teachers to try to make the work worth the effort. And there are also initiatives aimed at providing more professional development, more supports to be able to decrease caseloads.

And I think that the awareness of the problem and all the kind of creative solutions that universities and school districts and states are employing right now will likely and hopefully pay off in the coming years.

John Yang:

Now, I believe you were a special educator, and I believe your daughter is a special educator. Talk about why this role is so important, why having special educators is so important.

Kimber Wilkerson:

I'd say from my own perspective, it was a really impactful and meaningful career choice where I could see sort of my efforts paying off right in front of my eyes and investing in students who other people have kind of written off.

My own daughter decided to go into special education. She is actually an early career special educator. In her fourth year, you know, she feels pressures and she feels stretched thin, and she sometimes leans on me for ideas and support and I wish that more districts could provide more support to those early educators to help prevent them from getting burnt out.

And providing more support might be opportunities for those veteran or experienced educators to have some additional sort of impacts in their own buildings as well.

John YangG:

I'm curious what advice you had for your daughter or what advice you would have for any young person who's thinking of getting into this.

Kimber Wilkerson:

I'd say the thing that I try to stress the most is to remember why you got into it in the first place. Usually when people go into special education, they have, again, a desire to kind of invest in young people and try to help them achieve outcomes that other people might have decided they're not going to be able to achieve and to be an advocate for families.

John Yang:

Kimber Wilkerson from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, thanks very much.

Kimber Wilkerson:

Thank you.