Sped Teacher Shortage...

Excellent article and so true. But there is more. Many, many special ed teachers have very little training in the kinds of programs and methods that can really give your child a chance. I have been a special ed teacher for twenty years. In college I was taught to “slow down, do it again and be nice”. It was when my own son could not read that I learned about auditory processing, phoneme awareness and programs such as Lindamood-Bell, Wilson, Fast ForWord. When I pressured my district to train teachers we get one day or even one week, but no materials or support to teach these complex programs. Special ed teacher burn-out is very high because it is hard to stay at a job where you don’t see progress. You don’t see progress if you are doing your own thing without current materials and support. What methods is your child’s special ed teacher trained in? Is the teacher given the materials, support and scheduling to really provide those programs on a consistent basis? Many parents are relieved when their child is finally placed in special ed, as if something different was going to be done there. Too often the district would prefer to place your child in special ed for the rest of their academic career, rather than provide expert, intensive work to teach the child to read or write. If your child doesn’t make progress it is the child’s fault or the parent’s fault, but never the district’s fault.