Content Knowledge: Georgia
Special Education Teacher Preparation Policy
Analysis of Georgia's policies
Content Test Requirements: Georgia's P-12 special education certificates are issued as consultative, meaning that the teacher may work collaboratively with a content area teacher of record in all content subjects. To serve as teacher of record, candidates must add a special education concentration at a cognitive level (P-5, 4-8 and 6-12) in one of the following five areas: math, science, social science, language arts and reading. To add an academic level to a special education certificate, the teacher must either be recommended by an approved program or pass the appropriate content assessment.
Therefore, the state does not require a subject-matter assessment for this certificate, nor does it require a content test for what amounts to an elementary special education certification.
Recommendations for Georgia
Require that elementary special education candidates pass a rigorous content test as a condition of initial licensure.
To ensure that special education teacher candidates who will teach elementary grades possess sufficient knowledge of the necessary subject matter, Georgia should require a rigorous content test that reports separate passing scores for each content area. Georgia should also set these passing scores to reflect high levels of performance. Failure to ensure that teachers possess requisite content knowledge may deprive special education students of the opportunity to reach their academic potential.
Ensure that secondary special education teachers possess adequate content knowledge.
Secondary special education teachers are frequently generalists who teach many core subject areas. Georgia's current policy of requiring no subject-matter testing is problematic because it fails to ensure that all secondary special education teachers are adequately prepared to help their students meet rigorous learning standards. Georgia should consider a distinct route for secondary special education teacher certification that allows candidates to demonstrate requisite content knowledge in the classroom through a combination of testing and coursework.
State response to our analysis
Georgia asserted that the statement, "Therefore, the state does not require a subject-matter assessment for this certificate, nor does it require a content test for what amounts to an elementary special education certification" is incorrect. The state indicated that it has had the Special Education General Curriculum/Early Childhood Education field of preparation and certification for candidates preparing to teach in grades P-5 and that the Early Childhood Education Special Education General Curriculum Test is a content test.
Updated: December 2017
Last word
While it is true that the required, Georgia Assessments for the Certification of Educators (GACE) Early Childhood Special Education General Curriculum Assessment is a content test with a composite score, the fact that the state allows special education candidates the option of passing the test or providing a recommendation from an approved program warrants the statement in question and results in Georgia only meeting a small part of this goal.
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General Teacher Preparation
- Program Entry
- Teacher Shortages and Surpluses
- Program Performance Measures
- Program Reporting Requirements
- Student Teaching/Clinical Practice
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Elementary Teacher Preparation
Secondary Teacher Preparation
- Middle School Content Knowledge
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- Adolescent Literacy
- Secondary Content Knowledge
- Secondary Licensure Deficiencies
Special Education Teacher Preparation
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Teacher and Principal Evaluation
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Early Childhood Preparation
How we graded
4A: Special Education Content Knowledge
- Elementary Content Knowledge: The state should require that all new elementary special education candidates pass a licensure test across all elementary subject areas that is no less rigorous than the test required of general education candidates.
- Secondary Content Knowledge: The state should require that all new secondary special education candidates possess adequate content knowledge.
One-half of the total goal score is earned based on the following:
- One-half credit: The state will earn one-half of a point if it requires all new elementary special education candidates to pass an elementary content knowledge test that is no less rigorous than the test required of general education candidates.
- One-quarter credit: The state will earn one-quarter of a point if it requires elementary licenses in conjunction with special education licenses but does not offer special education elementary licenses.
One-half of the total goal score is earned based on the following:
- One-half credit: The state will earn one-half of a point if it requires all new secondary special education candidates to pass a special education licensure test across all secondary subject areas that is no less rigorous than the test required of general education candidates.
- One-quarter credit: The state will earn one-quarter of a point if it requires secondary licenses in conjunction with special education licenses but does not offer special education secondary licenses.
Research rationale
Generic K-12 special education licenses are inappropriate for teachers of high-incidence special education students. Too many states do not distinguish between elementary and secondary special education teachers, certifying all such teachers under a generic K-12 special education license. While this broad umbrella may be appropriate for teachers of low-incidence special education students, such as those with severe cognitive disabilities, it is deeply problematic for high-incidence special education students, who are expected to learn grade-level content.[1] And because the overwhelming majority of special education students are in the high-incidence category, the result is a fundamentally broken system.
Special education teachers teach content and therefore must know content.[2] While special educators should be valued for their critical role in working with students with disabilities and special needs, each state identifies them not as "special education assistants" but as "special education teachers," presumably because it expects them to provide instruction. Inclusion models, where special education students receive instruction from a general education teacher paired with a special education teacher to provide instructional support, do not mitigate the need for special education teachers to know content.[3] Providing instruction to children who have special needs requires knowledge of both effective learning strategies and the subject matter at hand.[4] Failure to ensure that teachers are well trained in content areas—presumably through subject matter licensing tests—deprives special education students of the opportunity to reach their academic potential.
[1] Levenson, N. (2011). Something has got to change: Rethinking special education (Working Paper 2011-01). American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED521782
[2] For an analysis of the importance of special educator content knowledge, see: Levenson, N. (2011). Something has got to change: Rethinking special education. American Enterprise Institute (Working paper 2011-01, 1-20).; For information on teacher licensing tests, see: Gitomer, D. H., & Latham, A. S. (1999). The academic quality of prospective teachers: The impact of admissions and licensure testing. Educational Testing Service. Retrieved from http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/RR-03-35.pdf; For a study on teacher testing scores and student achievement, see: Ladd, H. F., Clotfelter, C. T., & Vigdor, J. L. (2007). How and why do teacher credentials matter for student achievement (NBER Working Paper, 142786). Retrieved from http://www.caldercenter.org/sites/default/files/1001058_Teacher_Credentials.pdf
[3] Feng, L., & Sass, T. R. (2010). What makes special education teachers special? Teacher training and achievement of students with disabilities (Working Paper 49). National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research. Retrieved from http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/1001435-what-makes-special.pdf; Monk, D. H. (1994). Subject area preparation of secondary mathematics and science teachers and student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 13(2), 125-145.
[4] For research on the importance of teachers' content knowledge, see: Boyd, D. J., Grossman, P. L., Lankford, H., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2009). Teacher preparation and student achievement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 31(4), 416-440; Willingham, D. T. (2006). How knowledge helps: It speeds and strengthens comprehension, learning—and thinking. American Educator, 30(1), 30-37.