ABSTRACT

Historically, special education teacher preparation has been asked to address two distinct problems: preparing an adequate supply of special education teachers (SETs) to mitigate critical shortages, and collaborating to prepare general education teachers (GETs) capable of supporting struggling students and accommodating students with disabilities in general education classrooms. Although the former has garnered far more attention than the latter, the solutions to these problems are intertwined. If teacher education is successful in preparing classroom teachers to work more effectively with struggling students so that fewer require intensive intervention, then the demand for SETs is likely to be reduced. Although we have little evidence about the ability of classroom teachers to accommodate students with disabilities, SET demand is changing of late (Boe, deBettencourt, Dewey, Rosenberg, Sindelar, & Leko, 2013).