IDEA '97 and Educator Standards: Special Educators' Perceptions of Their Skil[Is and Those of General Educators

Abstract

The authors provide results of a study analyzing special educator's beliefs regarding special and general educators' skills in implementing legal mandates described in Public Law 105-17, the individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA '97). The authors compare how preservice and practicing special educators approach legal mandates, and what special educators perceive to be the influence of their preservice preparation andlor continuing professional development opportunities on satisfying legal requirements. The groups shared similar, negative perceptions regarding their general education counterparts' skills to adapt general education curricula and to accommodate student needs for statewide assessments. The groups differed in their responses to a number of items regarding student suspensions and the appropriateness of general education preparation programs to meet the needs of students with disabilities. There appears to be a continued division between general and special educators. Preservice and inservice programs should be designed to integrate general and special educators in order to unify the service delivery systems.

Teacher Candidates' Understandings of Instructional Strategies in a Changing Field

“…Many participants advocated separate settings, separate testing, and separate curricula-a common response to student failure in general education classes on general education exams. This finding is supported by past research that documented special education teachers' skepticism that general education teachers understand special education and are able to make accommodations in their classrooms for students with disabilities (O'Shea, Stoddard, & O'Shea, 2000). Such beliefs may contribute to alienation of new teachers from their general education colleagues and to further entrenchment of the separate-systems approach to general education and special education.…”

Intersecting Domains of Assessment Knowledge: School Typologies Based on Interviews with Secondary Teachers

“…Findings from a survey conducted in the United States by O'Shea et al (2000) seemed to provide a somewhat different view of teachers' knowledge about assessment. Their study showed that experienced special education teachers were more knowledgeable about formal types of assessments, such as standardized tests, whereas novice special education teachers were more knowledgeable about informal, diagnostic uses of assessment.…”

“…Therefore, our most emphatic recommendation is that those with an interest in assessment-novice teachers, teacher educators, indeed measurement experts themselves-deploy various formal and informal methods for surfacing, paying attention to, and then grounding their own work in the insights of experienced teachers (cf. O'Shea et al, 2000).…”

“…In addition, five studies provided information supportive of inferences about teachers' views. Three involved surveys of teachers (G. Brown, Lake, & Matters, 2010;Leighton et al, 2010;O'Shea, Stoddard, & O'Shea, 2000), 2 and two were reports of professional development initiatives that sought to expand teachers' repertoire of assessment strategies (Borko et al, 1997;Cooney, Bell, Fisher-Cauble, & Sanchez, 1996).…”

Teacher Qualifications and Attitudes Toward Inclusion

“…Current research into teacher attitudes has shown that both general and special education teachers are in the main, supportive of the principle of inclusion (Minke, Bear, Deemer, & Griffin, 1999;O'Shea, Stoddard, & O'Shea, 2000;Semmel, Abernathy, Butera, & Lesar, 1991), although some teachers have also been found to be of the opinion that inclusion, though desirable, may not be practicable in reality (Schumm & Vaughn, 1991). Some differences, however, have been reported between general and special education teachers.…”