Elevating Instruction for Secondary‐School Students with Learning Disabilities by Demystifying the Highly Qualified Subject Matter Requirement

Abstract

The highly qualified mandate of the No Child Left Behind Act and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has created unnecessary confusion, particularly among secondary‐school special educators and administrators with respect to instruction in core academic subjects. The pursuit of compliance solutions to meet this requirement has generally distracted stakeholders from re‐examining the mission of secondary‐school special education for students with learning disabilities (LD). Because effective subject matter instruction within inclusive classrooms is dependent upon general and special educators capitalizing on each other's areas of expertise, the necessity of requiring special educators to possess a comparable level of subject matter knowledge as the general educator is not only of questionable merit, but often counterproductive. This article poses and examines several fundamental philosophical questions related to the delivery of core academic subject matter to students with LD.

Transforming Special Education Teacher Education: A Reaction to the Report Transforming Teacher Education through Clinical Practice: A National Strategy to Prepare Effective Teachers

“…Special educators must also be prepared to work collaboratively with general education teachers across a range of frequently ill-defined and poorly supported coteaching scenarios and content areas (Billingsley, 2004;King-Sears & Bowman-Kruhm, 2011;Mastropieri et al, 2005;McKenzie, 2009;Oyler, 2011 ). In addition, they must keep up with paperwork requirements and maintain ongoing communication with families and a range of professionals (Billingsley,20 l 0).…”

“…One reason for this is that expectations placed on special educators in the field are wildly diverse and unpredictable with respect to daily duties (McKenzie, 2009). In other words, each district and school maintains its own interpretation of instructional settings for students with disabilities.…”

“…Special educators must be ready to teach students with a wide variety of instructional needs and disabilities across multiple grade levels and in rigorous content areas (Brownell et al, 2005;Brownell et al, 2011;Kennedy & Ihle, 2012;McKenzie, 2009). Regardless of grade level or content area, a chief concern of special educators is their capacity to promote individualized instruction among students resulting in student achievement (Edmonds et al, 2009;Faggella-Luby & Deshler, 2008;Kennedy & Deshler, 2010).…”

“…Experts in the field of special education augment this list with readiness of educators to embed individualized instructional practices within content-specific demands of the general education curriculum (Brownell et al, 201 O;Kennedy & Ihle, 2012;McKenzie, 2009;Oyler, 2011 ). To date, there is little evidence to guide teacher preparation programs in construction of instructional models addressing the complex and voluminous demands placed on special education teachers (Brownell et al, 2011;Sindelar et al , 2010).…”

“…To date, there is little evidence to guide teacher preparation programs in construction of instructional models addressing the complex and voluminous demands placed on special education teachers (Brownell et al, 2011;Sindelar et al , 2010). To some extent, the limited empirical guidance is a function of both the heterogeneity of preparatory programs (Brownell et al, 2005) and the substantially different instructional settings within individual districts and schools (KingSears & Bowman-Kruhm, 2011;McKenzie, 2009). …”