What Next - The Crisis in Special Education
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2022
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Federal law guarantees that students with disabilities have access to special educators. But widespread teacher shortages mean that these students are often being taught by people without the mandated qualifications – or by no one at all.
Guest: Dylan Peers McCoy is an investigative reporter on WFYI’s education team.
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Transcript
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| 0:36.6 | For the last few months, Dylan Pears McCoy has been hearing stories of these parents, |
| 0:42.0 | people who show up at their local public school, only to find out their kid has no teacher, |
| 0:48.4 | like this one woman in Northwest Indiana. So the mom went to school on that first day when you |
| 0:53.7 | meet, when you're going to meet your kid's teacher, and instead of meeting a teacher, she met a |
| 0:59.9 | teaching aid. And that teaching aid said they hadn't been able to fill the teaching position yet. |
| 1:08.4 | These missing teachers work in special education, and this child, she was non-speaking. |
| 1:15.9 | And her mom was worried because she just didn't know what was going on with her everyday at school, |
| 1:20.6 | because her daughter doesn't speak. And anecdotally, we've heard from other parents who've had |
| 1:26.0 | similar experiences. In some cases, it might be a kid with a less debilitating disability, |
| 1:33.0 | you know, maybe your child is dyslexic, and they're supposed to be receiving services to help |
| 1:39.6 | with reading, and your kid just doesn't get those services. Dylan was curious why these teachers weren't |
| 1:46.2 | showing up. She covers education for WFYI, an Indianapolis Public Radio Station. She knew |
| 1:52.8 | special educators often struggle with paperwork, along with the stress of managing kids with |
| 1:57.6 | complicated needs. It wasn't until she got a few teachers on the phone, though, that she realized |
| 2:04.1 | exactly how their burnout was snowballing. Having so many missing colleagues meant the ones who got |
| 2:11.3 | left behind were fending for themselves. So the worst case scenario, I think, for me in doing this |
... |
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