A year ago, a Vanderbilt-based research team submitted to the federal Education Department a study titled "The Study of Special Education Leadership Personnel With Particular Attention to the Professoriate." (You can request a copy by emailing lead author Deborah Deutsch Smith at [email protected].) In 50 pages (plus appendices), it concluded that there are not enough people training for university posts in special education and that this is bad for disabled kids and prospective special educators. Though it listed some fairly predictable solutions, it mainly identified problems. More recently, Vanderbilt published a dozen-page glossy report, drawing on the aforementioned study and others, entitled "The Shortage of Special Education Faculty: Why It is Happening, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do About It." We are always slightly wary of reports that misspell the word "acknowledgments" but, if you are interested, this one briefly reviews the main reasons that (in the authors' view) there aren't enough future special ed faculty in the pipeline (time, ability to relocate, money, career plans) and some strategies to boost this supply. These add up to: make it faster, easier and more appealing to become a special-ed professor. The report itself doesn't appear in cyberspace but you can find a summary at http://hecse.uky.edu/articles/shortage.html.
