Why is there a shortage of special education teachers?

It's Consider This, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, why it's so hard to hire and keep special education teachers. More students qualify for special education in this country than ever before. About one in six public school students, or 8.2 million students nationwide. They include kids with all kinds of learning differences. That can include children with autism, learning disabilities like dyslexia, developmental delays, and physical disabilities. The kids are so wonderful, and the team I work with are so supportive. Dana Lynn Garcia teaches special education at an elementary school in Chicago. Despite the high need for these educators, most states are having a really hard time finding them. Navigating the procedures of special ed and the law and school policy is so challenging. SPED is just short-staffed. People are misinformed. There's assumptions about what we're supposed to do. In our communities, there's assumptions about what we're supposed to do. I can see why people burn out of the fields. NPR's education team wanted to hear directly from the people doing this work. So, they asked educators from all over the country to share voice memos, dispatches from the classroom. I absolutely adore all of the kids. I'm just so lucky to have them. But yesterday was definitely one of the hardest days I've had this far. I mean, everything was just going wrong. Emily Ellis is a first-year student. Emily Ellis is a first-year elementary school teacher in KC, South Carolina. She, like many of the teachers, has expressed a deep love for the work and her students, but also challenges. I think what has been the most draining is the behind-the-scenes work of a teacher that I didn't really know too much about. Consider this. There is a growing need for special education teachers, but it has been hard to find and retain enough of them. NPR's education team has been following about a dozen special education teachers from around the country this school year. listening to what their jobs are really like. My first day went surprisingly well. For one, I slept last night. Miracle. I had to go to the bathroom and just cry because I just felt like I failed. I got so many hugs, so many, like, I missed you. I'm so happy that you're my teacher again. That is just a small sample of the voice memos. NPR education correspondent Janaki Mehta and producer Lauren McGaughy have been fielding since the school year began. Janaki joins us now to talk more about this reporting. Hey there. Hey, Scott. So what got you started on this idea of following all these educators? Yeah, so, Scott, there is this rapidly growing population of students with all kinds of disabilities, and schools are required by law to give them customized services so they can succeed at school. But the teachers who serve them have always been in short supply, and that's in nearly every state. That shortage just keeps getting worse. So to figure out why it's so hard to find special ed teachers, my editor Nirvi Shah and I decided we wanted to go beyond that. We wanted to go beyond the research and hear directly from these teachers. Since the school year began, about a dozen teachers from places like California and Kansas and New York have been squeezing us into their busy days. Hi, guys. I just got to school. Hi. I hope you both had a lovely day. Sending us voice memos as they wake up at dawn, after school, as they clean up their classrooms, from their drives home. Hello. Hey, guys. So I thought I would share about the first thing. Stay in touch with them through the school year and visit some in their classrooms. This is such an interesting idea. I feel like these moments that people are sending you these voice memos, I can imagine how tired or vulnerable or just frazzled they might be at any given moment. What are you hearing so far? Okay. So I'm going to start with a misconception, Scott, that the reason these jobs are so hard to fill is because of the kids. And that is not what we're hearing from teachers. Let me let them speak for themselves. Here's teacher Carrie Anderson Walker, Deanna Swanson. And Paul Stone. I have a lot of emotions right now. Just excited. They're just such a good group of kids. The behavior is great with the kids. At the same time, I'm excited to build new relationships with my new sixth graders coming in. One of my second graders, who's a student with autism, he saw me. He's like, hey, Dr. C, Dr. C. And he came. And I feel extremely lucky that they get to be a part of my journey of teaching. That sentiment that Jeff Carroll and Emily Ellis also shared, that kids are the best part of the job, that is backed up by research. But being a special educator also takes much more than the love of students. There are a million competing priorities, and each child has unique needs that take time to understand. Time teachers often don't have. I have 20 students on my caseload in third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. This is way more students than I was initially anticipating. That's Lucy Lane, who's teaching special ed for the first time, She thought she was going to have 12 students, but because her school hadn't yet filled another special ed vacancy, she ended up taking on nearly double the students at the start of the year. Eventually, her district filled that other job, and her caseload went down to 14. Even more experienced teachers say no matter how much they plan, it never feels like enough. Like fourth-year teacher Dana Lynn Garcia. I feel like I was coming into this school year more prepared this time around. And yet, I feel like the needs. are even greater than the year before. And the hours can be long, especially for first-year teachers like Grace Fitzgerald. We get out of school at 2.45, and I would stay until 5.30 most days. Some of that time was spent doing, you know, like paperwork. We heard a lot about paperwork, especially writing IEPs, or Individualized Education Programs. These written legal documents are key to special ed. They're like a roadmap for each child, and what they need to learn. Like speech therapy, or extra reading help. And no matter if they're in a big urban district, or a small rural one, almost every teacher told us IEPs are a huge source of stress. Partly because of how much time and legal know-how they take. Here's Lucy Lane and Paul Stone again. I have my first IEP meeting on Friday. So, nervous but excited to finally, like, review data, meet with parents, and talk about goals for a student. So, I didn't end up finishing. I finished my IEP tonight like I would have liked to. So, I'll get up tomorrow morning at 4.30, go in early, and get that going. Then there's the pressure to make sure kids have opportunities to do stuff beyond the classroom. And much of that coordination often falls on special ed teachers. I have four students in wheelchairs. That's Kathleen Tejeda, who's in her 20th year of teaching in California. Two of the four so far have lots of extracurricular activities. One's got theater and drama, the other one's cheerleading. And that's just me. So, there's a lot of arranging of schedules and getting. There are also limits to what teachers can do, like physical realities of a school building. Our school doesn't have walls. So, we have, like, six classes per grade level in one ginormous room, and it's separated by dividers. That's Dana Lynn Garcia again from Chicago. This year, there's so many kids who get dysregulated very easily. And so, when one kid is screaming and crying. And then other kids react to it. And student behavior can be hard to prepare for, even in districts where teachers have lots of resources. Like in Vail Unified in Arizona, where Deanna Swanson shared what happened on her first day this year. As I'm walking in the door, one of our new freshmen with severe autism had one of our paras grabbed by the shirt. Paras, or paraeducators, are support staff who are often in classrooms to help students. One of the paras got bit, head banged, was bleeding from his nose. Swanson said she drove home in silence that day. She and her co-teacher got together that weekend and worked out a plan to make sure they were more prepared to support each other in a situation like that. A few days later, she followed up to share some good news. So, today was a lot better. That student, who'd had the outburst on day one. Had a perfect, perfect, perfect day. No physical aggression. So happy. That, she says, is a kind of rewarding moment that keeps her coming back to this job every day. That is NPR education correspondent Janaki Mehta reporting. Janaki's still with me. Listening to all of this, this gets to a question I've wondered for a long time. Do special ed teachers get paid more? So, in many states, no. Actually, there's new research out that shows only 17 states pay teachers more for any hard-to-staff subjects that include special ed. And that's down. Actually, from four years ago, when 22 states did that. And, you know, Scott, research shows paying teachers more helps. Helps to hire them. And, you know, some of the teachers I'm talking to that you heard from, they're making like $50,000 a year and living in pretty expensive places. There's a lot in this piece. It's only October. I'm curious where you plan to take this series next. Yeah, Scott, we are staying in touch with these teachers throughout this school year. We're going to visit some of their classrooms. And, you know, some have already told us they love what they do. but they're already feeling burnt out and some of them aren't sure how long they'll be able to stick it out. So we'll stay with them and see where the school year goes. That is NPR's Janaki Mehta, who focuses on learning differences in her reporting. Thank you so much. Thank you. This episode was produced by Lauren McGaughy, Karen Zamora, and Mia Venkat with audio engineering by Hannah Glovna. Our director is Jonas Adams. It was edited by Nirvi Shah, Steve Drummond, and Tinbeat Ermias. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning. Thank you to our Consider This Plus supporters who make the journalism you hear on this show possible. Supporters also hear every episode without messages from sponsors. You can learn more about it at plus.npr.org. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.