WASHINGTON — Educators, researchers, advocates, parents and attorneys told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Friday that a shortage of special education teachers is hurting the academic growth and due process rights of students with disabilities.
To remedy the problem, the speakers offered a wide variety of solutions, including raising teacher salaries, increasing class sizes, reducing compliance tasks, offering more school choice, and investing in teacher career pipelines. The all-day briefing on special education teacher shortages featured 22 panelists who provided testimony and answered questions from the eight-member bipartisan commission.
The commission is studying the issue and plans to publish an Annual Statutory Enforcement Report on it in the second half of 2025. Those findings and recommendations will be shared with the president and Congress. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to close the U.S. Department of Education, which oversees federal special education funding and programs.
Some panelists at Friday's session shared how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated longtime, persistent special education teacher shortages. Others said that while there are pockets of shortages across the country, they doubt there's a generalized national crisis.
About 70% of surveyed schools reported special education teacher vacancies in the 2023-24 school year, according to a National Center for Education Statistics report.
The Council for Exceptional Children and the Council of Administrators of Special Education, say about half of special education teachers leave the profession within the first five years of teaching.
"We need to recognize that teaching is a profession and not just a job, and it should be created and treated with the respect and compensation that it deserves."
Terita Gusby
CEO and founder of Education Prescriptions
The shortage of special education teachers — as well as special education professionals and support staff such as speech-language pathologists, behavior specialists and paraprofessionals — means "students are not able to access critical services in a timely way, directly affecting their educational and social development," said Jessica Tang, president of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Federation of Teachers.
But Max Eden, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, said the number of special educators over the past two decades has increased by 59%, while the special education population has grown by only 16%.
"That's four new special ed teachers for every one new special ed student. Rationally, we have never had less of a special ed teacher shortage," Eden said.
Salary struggles
Several of the panelists recommended more funding under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, as well as state and local investments, to support higher wages for special educators. They pointed out that these teachers face more paperwork demands and training requirements than their general education counterparts.
"We're talking about teachers in ways that cause them not to feel as valued, because perhaps the teacher salary scale is still in the '50s, so shame on us when it should be far above that across this nation," said Tiffany Anderson, superintendent of Topeka Public Schools in Kansas.
Eric Hannushek, the Paul and Jean Hanna senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said teacher salary increases should be directed to high-quality educators in specialized areas.
"Let's just give overall, across the board, salary increases," Hannushek said sarcastically. "That will do nothing. That will do absolutely nothing. You have to, in fact, pay for where the scarcity is."
To help recruit and retain special educators, districts also need to provide benefits like student loan forgiveness, along with apprenticeships, better working conditions, opportunities for professional growth, and mentoring, panelists suggested.
Speaking specifically of student loan forgiveness programs, Tang said, "I have met dozens and dozens of teachers who say it's been life-changing."
When schools can't fill special educator vacancies, they often have to hire inexperienced people with emergency or provisional teaching licenses, said Terita Gusby, CEO and founder of Education Prescriptions, a virtual tutoring company for students with disabilities. Those temporary teachers are more likely to be underqualified and leave the profession early, Gusby said.
"Addressing the teacher shortage is part of a multifaceted approach," Gusby said. "We need to recognize that teaching is a profession and not just a job, and it should be created and treated with the respect and compensation that it deserves."
More options
Some panelists suggested that expanding private school choice options could help alleviate teacher shortages in public schools and better serve students with disabilities.
"The population of children with special needs is diverse, and the spectrum of needs necessitates skilled, dedicated educators for students along with a variety of learning options" that families can choose, said Jonathan Butcher, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative nonprofit that advocates for individual freedoms and limited government. The Heritage Foundation developed the controversial Project 2025, a guide for the next presidential administration to limit the role of the federal government.
Butcher said families with children with disabilities want alternatives to public schools in part because of disputes between families and school systems over individualized services. State education savings accounts created from taxpayer dollars could help families pay for therapies, tutors, private school tuition, online classes and more, said Butcher.
Yet Dan Stewart, managing attorney for education and employment at the National Disability Rights Network, said private school vouchers only give the "illusion of access" because private schools aren't required to educate students with disabilities. The network is a nonprofit group that advocates for people with disabilities.
Jessica Levin, litigation director with the nonprofit Education Law Center, said private school vouchers are harmful to special education programs, because private schools aren't held to the same accountability measures as public schools.
"We must vigorously protect their [students with disabilities] legal rights under IDEA and other key laws and ensure schools have sufficient resources to fulfill those rights. Vouchers actively work against both these goals," Levin said.
"Voucher programs leave public schools, which are the cornerstone of our democracy, with even fewer resources to serve a higher-need student population," Levin added.
"Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions to long-term problems in many places in the education world."
William Trachman
General counsel for Mountain States Legal Foundation
The special educator role could become more attractive if legal compliance duties, paperwork and meetings could be lessened, said William Trachman, general counsel for Mountain States Legal Foundation and former deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.
"More focus is needed on maximizing the amount of time that a teacher can spend with a student, and more time is needed on improving morale, because when teachers talk about the heavy burdens associated with paperwork, that has downstream consequences on morale," he said.
"Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions to long-term problems in many places in the education world," Trachman added.
The U.S. Education Department did not have a representative testify Friday due to scheduling conflicts but plans to submit written responses, an agency spokesperson said.
The commission is not planning to hold another briefing on special education teacher shortages but is accepting public comments at [email protected] through Dec. 16.
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