Study Recommends Close Look at Educator Workforce Issues

The Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has released a new study of special education in charter and traditional public schools, Special Education at a Crossroads: Ensuring Equity and Inclusion for Students with Disabilities. With COVID-19 as the backdrop and based on interviews with over 60 administrators and teachers in 15 schools, CRPE articulates the obstacles educators, parents, and students faced in delivering and receiving educational programs and therapies during the global pandemic. They offer four “vital” recommendations for policymakers to consider as schools regroup. On the list is an urgent plea for schools to reconsider what was once “normal” and use the opportunity coming out of COVID to “reshape America’s schools.” Specifically, CRPE recommends states “examine the state of the special education teaching workforce, including challenges in recruitment, retention, and attrition...[and] consider ways to build the teacher pipeline in sustainable ways.”

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