The No Child Left Behind Act requires school districts to employ “highly qualified” educators, but meeting the standard may be a particular challenge for special education teachers, who might not have majored in a discipline such as English, science, or math before entering the classroom. Under the federal special education law, teachers must be highly qualified in special education as well as every subject they teach.
How will the new teacher-quality standards affect the field of special education? How should the competency of special education teachers be judged?
