Abstract
Since 1988, researchers have monitored the extent and severity of the chronic special education (SE) faculty shortage. The present study sought to add to this knowledge base by (a) gathering data on the supply and demand of leadership personnel in SE since the 2001 Faculty Shortage Study; (b) combining and comparing these data with other sources (e.g., Survey of Earned Doctorates [SED]); (c) producing evidence to assess what changes, if any, have occurred in leadership personnel in SE over the past 10 years; (d) describing the characteristics of the SE faculty job market, including recent faculty search trends; and (e) identifying emerging issues as it relates to the demand for SE faculty. Data to answer these questions came from a random sample of job-search coordinators (n = 36) for SE faculty position advertisements posted in The Chronicle of Higher Education between June and November, 2010. Other sources of data include the Survey of Doctoral Training Programs in Special Education and the Survey of Teacher Education Training Programs in Special Education. The most important finding from this study indicates that although demand markers have improved in the last 10 years, retirements across all SE programs are predicted to increase by 21% per year between 2011 and 2017. Implications of and solutions for the predicted shortage are discussed.
Since 1988, researchers have monitored the supply of and demand for special education (SE) faculty. The demand side of these studies was initiated by Sindelar and Taylor (1988), and the continued imbalance between the supply of new graduates and demand at the nation’s SE teacher preparation programs is now well documented (Dil, Geiger, Hoover, & Sindelar, 1993; Eichinger, Downing, Evans, Feck, & Ike, 2000; Pierce, Smith, & Clarke, 1992; Sindelar, Buck, Carpenter, & Watanabe, 1993; Sindelar & Taylor, 1988; Smith, Montrosse, Robb, Tyler, & Young, 2011; Smith, Pion, Tyler, Sindelar, & Rosenberg, 2001). The consensus among these studies is that the demand for new faculty consistently outstrips the supply of new graduates.
History of the Chronic Supply/Demand Imbalance
Sindelar and Taylor (1988) established the standard methodology used in studies about the magnitude of demand for SE faculty. Two important studies followed this seminal work and used the Sindelar and Taylor method: Sindelar et al. (1993) and Eichinger et al. (2000). Figure 1 shows data from these three studies along with data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED; NORC, 2010). Together, these data illustrate the chronic and persistent shortage for SE faculty from 1975 to 1997. For much of this 22-year time span, less than half of the SE doctorates produced entered academe post graduation. The number of SE faculty positions advertised in the Chronicle of Higher Education was generally higher than the number of graduates pursing faculty positions. Even with significant market swings occurring over time across these two markers, this difference resulted in approximately 39% of SE faculty positions left vacant annually.
Supply and demand: History based on Sindelar and Taylor (1988); Sindelar, Buck, Carpenter, and Watanabe (1993); and Eichinger, Downing, Evans, Feck, and Ike (2000) studies
While the demand for SE faculty is growing, there are more positions available than there are graduates willing to fill them (Dil et al., 1993; Pierce et al., 1992; Sindelar et al., 1993; Sindelar & Rosenberg, 2003; Smith et al, 2001; Smith et al., 2011; Smith, Pierce, & Keyes, 1988). Unacceptable applicant pools, characterized by a large proportion of underqualified applicants or by poor person-organization or person-job fit, are the principal reason cited for a failed search (Pierce et al., 1992; Pierce & Smith, 1994; Sindelar et al., 1993; Smith et al., 1988). The shortage of qualified applicants can be attributed to two primary factors: insufficient supply of graduates and the career choices of new graduates (Evans et al., 2005; Sindelar & Taylor, 1988; Smith et al., 2001; Smith & Lovett, 1987).
Unacceptable applicant pools were first cited in Smith et al. (1988), where the mean applicant pool decreased significantly between 1985 and 1987. Sindelar et al. (1993) studied failed searches in 1988 and determined that smaller institutions could not compete for qualified candidates against larger institutions. They found that of 27 failed searches, 11 (40%) failed due to an unacceptable applicant pool and of those 9 were at institutions with <10,000 students. Pierce et al. (1992) surveyed job searches conducted in the academic year of 1989-1990 and found that 27% of the job searches failed due to either “inappropriate qualifications or unacceptability of the applicants.”
High attrition rates of an aging professoriate, growing SE doctoral training programs, and the expanding roles of SE faculty members have all contributed to the demand for new SE faculty. Meanwhile, noncompetitive salaries and low likelihood of mobility prevent successful completion of faculty searches. The consequence is a high percentage of job searches fail.
Reasons for the Demand
Extant research documents that the market demand for SE faculty is influenced by many factors, including attrition of an aging professoriate (Evans et al., 2005; Smith et al., 1988; Smith et al., 2001; Smith et al., 2011; Smith & Lovett, 1987; Tawney & DeHaas-Warner, 1993), expanding SE doctoral training programs (Dil et al., 1993; Sindelar & Rosenberg, 2003; Smith et al., 2011), and the diversity of career choices for SE doctoral graduates (Ryndak, Webb, & Clark, 1999; Smith, Robb, West, & Tyler, 2010; Smith & Salzberg, 1994).
Retirement
Smith and Lovett (1987) first predicted faculty retirements due to the aging professoriate amounting to a 10% turnover in the 5 years following their study. This trend has been confirmed in subsequent studies and continues to persist (Evans et al., 2005; Smith et al., 2001b; Tawney & DeHaas-Warner, 1993). Tawney and DeHaas-Warner’s 1993 study of Pennsylvania SE institutions of higher education (IHEs) reported that 21% of faculty either had or planned to retire by the year 2000. Sindelar and Rosenberg’s (2003) study of failed searches found that 29.8% of positions that were being filled in the 1997-1998 academic year were due to retirement. Meanwhile, Evans et al. (2005) found nearly 20% of faculty planned to retire by 2007.
Expanding programs
An increase in demand for SE faculty can also be attributed to the creation of new faculty lines. Pierce et al. (1992) reported that 22% of advertised positions during the 1989-1990 academic year were new and that 20% of anticipated positions were also newly created. In the 1997-1998 job-search season, Sindelar and Rosenberg (2003) determined that new positions constituted 43.2% of jobs searches. Smith et al. (2011) further found that 23% of job searches conducted between June and November, 2010, were due to new faculty positions. Many of these lines could be due to the diversification of the field of SE through federal mandates, such as services to infants and toddlers with disabilities (Smith & Salzberg, 1994) or in preparing general educators to instruct students with disabilities (Smith et al., 2010).
Career choice
Since 1975, the percentage of SE doctoral graduates seeking careers in academe was consistently less than half of all graduates (National Opinion Research Center [NORC] at the University of Chicago, 2010). Smith et al. (1988) first discovered that in 1988, only 33% of SE graduates sought faculty positions. Pierce and Smith (1994) found that of the 188 surveys of doctoral graduates completed, 58.5% took tenure or nontenure track positions in IHEs whereas the remaining 41.5% took positions outside of higher education. In addition, they found that the number of overall graduates had decreased when compared with earlier studies (see Sindelar et al., 1993; Smith & Lovett, 1987).
Factors affecting career choice have since been identified (Evans et al., 2005; Hardman & West, 2003; Pion, Smith, & Tyler, 2003; Tyler, Smith, & Pion, 2003). According to Tyler et al. (2003), students surveyed cited interesting or rewarding work, salary, and working conditions as factors influencing their career choices. Notably, only 44% intended to work in academe post graduation. Pion et al. (2003) reported that graduates with a bachelor’s degree in SE, who were younger; had faculty aspirations; received financial support such as assistantships, fellowships, or traineeships; and were willing to relocate for a faculty position were significantly more likely to become faculty. Pion and her colleagues also found that those in tenure-line faculty positions earned significantly less than their nonacademic counterparts and, due to age and family restrictions, had a low mobility rate.
Study Purpose
Sindelar and Taylor (1988) and others examining various aspects of the demand for faculty in SE (Dil et al., 1993; Eichinger et al., 2000; Pierce et al., 1992; Pierce & Smith, 1994; Pion et al., 2003; Sindelar et al., 1993; Smith et al., 2001; Smith et al., 2011; Smith & Lovett, 1987; Tyler, et al., 2003) have all approached this line of research guided by the fundamental belief in a free appropriate public education for all students, including those with disabilities, as mandated by Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1975 (PL 94-142). Implicit in this belief is that a free appropriate education can only be provided through high-quality pre- and in-service teacher preparation. Recent research provides evidence of the connection between teacher preparation and the quality of instruction for those with disabilities (Boe, Shin, & Cook, 2007; Darling-Hammond, 2005, 2006a, 2006b; Feng & Sass, 2010; Futernick, 2007; Laczko-Kerr & Berliner, 2003; Montrosse, 2009). The ability to provide quality training to those who teach students with disabilities is dependent on an adequate supply of faculty to fill vacant positions in teacher preparation and doctoral training programs. It is these faculty members who are the producers of new knowledge in which evidence-based practices are derived. They also serve as a bridge between the academic and practical worlds by translating research for use in K-12 classrooms.
The ability to meet mandates contained in IDEA hinges on the interconnection between SE doctoral programs, teacher training programs, and highly qualified teachers. An imbalance in this relationship has the potential to undermine the whole system, putting our ability to provide a free appropriate education to students with disabilities in jeopardy. For this reason, the situation must be monitored carefully to assess the severity of the supply/demand imbalance and to provide an opportunity to take action to avert a potential crisis. The significance of the current study cannot be understated.
To this end, the purposes of this study were to (a) gather data on the supply and demand of leadership personnel in SE since the 2001 Faculty Shortage Study (Smith et al., 2001); (b) combine and compare these data with other sources (e.g., Survey of Earned Doctorates [SED]); (c) produce evidence to assess what changes, if any, have occurred in leadership personnel in SE over the past 10 years; (d) better understand the characteristics of the SE faculty job market, including recent faculty search trends; and (e) identify emerging issues as it relates to the demand for SE faculty.
Method
Data for this study were collected from a variety of different sources. As described by Smith and Montrosse (2012, [in this issue]), the Survey of Doctoral Training Programs in Special Education solicited information from doctoral program coordinators on their SE doctoral training program (97% response rate). The Survey of Teacher Education Training Program in Special Education (Robb, Smith, & Montrosse, 2012, [in this issue]) asked SE teacher preparation program coordinators to provide information on their teacher training program (78% response rate). More detailed information concerning the methodology of these two surveys is included elsewhere in this issue.
In addition, a small triangulation study was added to the Special Education Faculty Needs Assessment (SEFNA) study to validate some of the initial findings uncovered from these two surveys. The methodology for the Survey of Recent Special Education Faculty Job Search Coordinators is described below.
Participants
Respondents for this study were identified from faculty advertisements posted in The Chronicle of Higher Education between June and November, 2010. Job advertisements for community college faculty not focused on preparing SE teachers and state-, district-, and school-level administration positions related to SE were excluded. Also excluded were position announcements for related services (e.g., speech-language pathology faculty members) and nonfaculty positions (e.g., positions requiring vision impairment certifications). Only job advertisements for faculty positions that required a doctorate in SE were included in the study sample. A total of 114 job advertisements fitting the inclusion criteria were posted during the study time frame. Although the total potential sample was small (N = 114), it was cost-prohibitive to survey the entire sample due to costs associated with data collection. Some of these costs included phone calls to universities and colleges to verify who to send the survey to, financial incentives provided to those completing the survey, and follow-up activities with job-search coordinators who had not completed the search process when the initial survey was sent out. Therefore, of the 114 advertisements initially identified, approximately 38% (n = 43) were randomly chosen to participate in the study. Figure 2 illustrates position type and frequency count for the entire population and the randomly chosen sample included in this study. Job-search coordinators listed in job advertisements were contacted via email and asked to provide information related to these positions. Thirty-six of the 43 job-search coordinators (84%) provided information.
Number and type of position advertised
Instrumentation
Questions from the Special Education Doctoral Program Survey related to job searches were adapted to develop an initial set of questions. Examples of questions that were adapted from other SEFNA surveys include (a) Was this search ever postponed due to a hiring freeze? (b) Did a culturally and linguistically diverse candidate fill the position? and (c) Did an individual with a disability fill the position? Additional questions were added to the survey to triangulate initial findings from the Smith et al. (2012) and the Robb et al. (2012) studies, such as what SE specialization is required and is the position being, or going to be, readvertised or has it been eliminated? Other questions were developed based on conversations among the SEFNA study team and with the Office of Special Education Programs.
Examples of some of these types of questions include (a) What reasons led to the search? (b) Why was this position vacated? and (c) Does the job description describe the duties of the faculty member who previously held this position? The final Survey of Recent Special Education Faculty Job Search Coordinators included 30 questions (see http://www.cgu.edu/sefnasurveys) designed to elicit information related to (a) the position being advertised, (b) characteristics of the position descriptions included in the job advertisement, and (c) outcomes associated with the job search.
Procedures
The job-search coordinators who agreed to participate were sent a link to an online Qualtrics™ survey in the spring of 2011. Prior to beginning the survey, participants were asked to sign a consent form to reaffirm their willingness to participate in the study. The survey remained open for approximately 2 weeks, with an initial invitation email and two reminder emails sent out during this time. In instances when the job search had not concluded (n = 12), job-search coordinators agreed to be contacted at a later date to update the study team about the outcome of the job search. This phone call follow-up occurred during August 2011 with 11 job-search coordinators providing this information. A small financial incentive (US $75 gift card) was provided to job-search coordinators who provided data for the triangulation study. Data were analyzed using SPSS to compute frequencies and percentages of responses.
Results
Profile of Recent Faculty Searches
Of the 114 positions advertised in the Chronicle of Higher Education between June and November, 2010, 58% were at the assistant level, 25% were at the assistant/associate level, and 17% were open rank (Figure 2). Among job advertisements included in the Survey of Recent Special Education Faculty Job Search Coordinators (n = 36), most (65%) advertised positions were for vacant positions. In 71% of these cases, the person vacating the position had already left the university sometime between 2007 and 2010. The remaining 29% were expected to vacate the position at the end of the 2010-2011 academic year. Job-search coordinators indicated that a majority (45%) of vacant positions were due to faculty retirements, 18% were due to the acceptance of a new position at another university, 18% were due to the acceptance of a new nonuniversity position, and 18% were due to other issues (e.g., fit issues, faculty member recently deceased).
In instances where the job posting was to fill a vacant position, job-search coordinators were asked about alignment between job responsibilities contained in the job advertisement and those of the departing faculty member. Results indicate that 59% of job responsibilities contained in the job advertisement were aligned with those of the person previously occupying the vacant position, whereas 41% were not aligned. One of the reasons cited by job-search coordinators related to job responsibilities not being aligned was the perceived need to respond to shifting market demands. Another reason cited included the need for the incoming faculty member to take on a less formal leadership role. This was typically in cases where a senior faculty member had retired and a junior-level faculty was being hired to take his or her place. Despite the economic downturn of 2009, only 12% of those advertised to fill vacant positions were from searches previously postponed due to a mandated hiring freeze.
While a majority of job advertisements were to fill a vacant, existing position, about a third (35%) were advertised to fill a newly created faculty position. Job-search coordinators were asked about reasons for the creation of the new position. Reasons cited included the development of a new program, increased enrollment, and shifting market demands.
Regardless of whether the search was to fill a newly created position or a recently vacated one, 85% required some type of specialization and many required more than one type of specialization. A little over a third required specialization in general SE (mild/moderate) or general SE (generic), 36% and 33%, respectively. A smaller percentage required specialization in learning disabilities (24%), early childhood and early intervention (21%), and autism (18%).
On average, job coordinators received 27 applications (range = 5-65 applications), only 8 (range = 1-25) of which (29.6%) were considered qualified for the position. By August 2011, all of the searches had ended. Overall, 75% of jobs advertised between June and November, 2010 in the Chronicle of Higher Education ended successfully with a candidate accepting the position. Of the 25% of positions that remained unfilled, none of these faculty lines were lost and all indicated that they plan to readvertise the position. Furthermore, among the 75% that ended successfully, almost half (48%) indicated that they plan to search for at least one new faculty member during the next academic job market cycle.
Historical and Future Indicators of Demand
Table 1 combines data from the The 2001 Faculty Shortage Study (Smith et al., 2001) and the Special Education Doctoral Program Survey (Smith et al., 2012) to depict demand for SE faculty over the past 10 years. In 2001, percentage of doctoral graduates that entered academe was 45.0%. According to data from the current study, the percentage of graduates pursing academic positions has increased by almost 11% (55.6%), indicating an increased demand for SE faculty.
Ten-Year Comparison of the Percentage of Doctoral Graduates Entering Academe Post Graduation in Special Education
Note: SEFNA = Special Education Faculty Needs Assessment.
The supply and demand data associated with those obtaining SE degrees are included in Figure 3. This figure combines job search data from Sindelar & Taylor (1988), Sindelar et al. (1993), Eichinger et al. (2000) with data collected by the authors from the Chronicle of Higher Education from 2006 through 2011 (Semas, 2006 - 2011). It also includes data from the Special Education Doctoral Program Survey from the Smith et al. (2011) study. Advertised positions in The Chronicle of Higher Education are missing from Figure 3 for the time period between 1998 and 2005 due to lack of data. Data from the NORC on the number of graduates pursing positions in academe between 1977 and 2008 are also included. Finally, it includes data from the Special Education Doctoral Program Survey (Smith et al., 2012) related to estimates regarding the number of faculty who will retire in the next 5 years.
Supply and demand: History and Projections (1975-2017)
In examining these data, it is clear that the total supply of graduates with SE doctoral degrees has fluctuated significantly between 1977 and 2008, and generally has taken a slightly downward trend. The percentage of these graduates that have entered academe has also fluctuated significantly during this time but has been on the rise since about 2001. When comparing the number of graduates who secure academic positions with the number of advertised positions, it is clear that, in all but a few instances, there has been a gap between these two indicators. That is, with the exception of the recessions in 1982 and 2009, there have consistently been more advertised positions than there are number of graduates wanting to secure them.
In terms of predicted demand, over the next 5 years, data from the Survey of Doctoral Training Programs in Special Education (Smith et al., 2012) indicate that universities with SE doctoral programs will experience a substantial loss of faculty. Though the 97 doctoral programs in the nation represent only 9% of all SE personnel preparation programs, between half and two thirds of their faculty will retire in the next 5 years. Each of these programs has an average of eight full-time equivalent (FTE) tenure-line faculty. Therefore, between 388 and 520 doctoral faculty will be lost in the next 5 years.
Based on current numbers, it is estimated that over the next several years, doctoral programs will need to produce a total of 856 graduates. Smith et al. (2012) noted that the average yearly production of SE doctoral graduates across the 97 programs is 3 per year, only a little over half (55.6%) of who went on to an academic career. To replenish the supply of faculty due to retirements alone, each doctoral program would need to produce, per year, an additional 7.5 graduates who subsequently pursue academic positions. To maintain the current levels of those pursuing academic and nonacademic careers, each doctoral program would need to produce a total of 18 graduates per year (9 graduates per year who pursue academic positions and 9 graduates per year who pursue nonacademic positions).
Discussion
Demand in SE
History of demand
Multiple indicators exist related to demand in SE. At a broad level, one useful indicator is the historical balance between the supply of recent doctoral graduates and the demand for them. A number of studies have sought to track the history of demand for SE doctoral graduates (Eichinger et al., 2000; National Science Foundation, 2010; NORC at the University of Chicago, 2010; Sindelar et al., 1993; Sindelar & Taylor, 1988; Smith et al., 2011). For the first time, these data have been combined to provide a comprehensive picture of the history of demand for those earning doctoral degrees in SE. As can be garnered from the data presented, between 1977 and 2008, the total number of doctoral degrees awarded in SE has fluctuated. At the same time, the percentage of recent graduates entering the academic workforce has ebbed and flowed, but has been steadily increasing since 2001. Furthermore, with the exception of the recessions in 1982 and 2009, the number of advertised SE positions has far outnumbered the number of graduates wanting to secure those positions. The chronic, persistent shortage of supply to fill demand is evident.
Availability of academic positions
Another useful, broad-level indicator is how demand for SE doctorates compares with those from other fields. On this indicator, the field of SE appears to be substantially different. The U.S. supply/demand imbalance between those obtaining PhDs in the sciences and engineering and those securing tenure-track academic positions is well documented (Cyranoski, Gilbert, Ledford, Nayar, & Yahia, 2011). For example, “in 1973, 55% of US doctorates in the biological sciences secured tenure-track positions within six years of completing their PhD” (Cyranoski et al., 2011 P. 277). By 2006, this number had dwindled to 15%. This is not the case in SE.
Comparing demand across academic fields to that for SE doctoral degrees, it is evident that demand for SE graduates has and continues to remain robust. Data from the Survey of Doctoral Graduates in Special Education (Tyler et al., 2012, [in this issue]) indicate that the percentage of graduates who aspired to pursue an academic position on entering graduate school was significantly higher for those who eventually secured academic positions post graduation than those who secured nonacademic positions post graduation (71.3% and 28.7%, respectively). Furthermore, Tyler and her colleagues found that 31% of those who did not plan to become faculty on entering graduate school modified their career paths post graduation and entered academe. Compared with The 2001 Faculty Shortage Study (Smith et al., 2001), the percentage of doctoral graduates pursuing an academic career has increased by approximately 11 percentage points over the last 10 years (from 45% to 55.6%). Furthermore, irrespective of their career intentions at the time they began their graduate degree, 90% of SE graduates who work as faculty remain full-time. Many of the remaining 10% have retired but continue to work on a part-time basis to ensure program continuity until such time that a replacement can be found. Clearly, much progress in terms of the percentage of graduates pursing academic careers has been made in the last 10 years.
It is also important to note that demand remains robust, even during times of economic recession. The job market experienced a dip in demand in 2009 (54% fewer positions advertised compared with the previous year), which coincided with an economic downturn. As depicted in Figure 3, the market quickly rebounded in 2010 (55% more positions advertised compared with the previous year). Despite recent ebb and flow in the market, data gathered from job-search coordinators indicated that in 2010, 75% of completed job searches in SE ended successfully with a candidate accepting a position. The Smith et al. (2001) study found that unsuccessful searches resulted in the termination of the search and the closing of the unfilled position. In 2010, all unfilled positions were being readvertised. Despite media coverage related to the downsizing or closure of various doctoral programs in education (Semuels, 2010, June 4), according to Smith et al., SE doctoral preparation programs are not closing.
Program expansions
Another indicator related to demand includes the current and predicted future characteristics of the doctoral and teacher education programs that employ recent SE graduates. As highlighted in Robb et al. (2012), programs are expanding. Within the next 5 years, the vast majority of the teacher preparation programs we surveyed will begin to offer a blended general and SE program. More early intervention and early childhood programs are also being developed. Data from the Survey of Recent Special Education Faculty Job Search Coordinators support these projections. Due to these expansions, programs are also increasing the size of their faculty. Programs that created a new faculty line cited as their reasons the foundation of a new SE program or a need to respond to shifting market demands, among others.
Expanding faculty roles
Related, another indicator of demand in SE has to do with the nature of the work faculty members at doctoral granting universities (DGUs) and SE teacher education are being asked to do. Data from this study indicate that there is a shift occurring in terms of expanding roles of SE faculty. Data from the most recent job searches indicate that approximately 40% of job responsibilities are not aligned with those of the position’s previous occupant. One of the reasons cited for this misalignment included shifting market demands. Data reported in Robb et al. (2012) suggest that the blended general education (GE) and SE concentration will move from being fourth highest in the top-five program specializations at SE teacher education (TE) programs to second in the next 5 years. More programs are predicting they will offer this specialization. In doing so, SE faculty members are being asked to prepare special and general education teachers to implement specific evidence-based practices, such as response to intervention (RTI), universal design for learning (UDL), schoolwide behavior management, and multi-tiered instruction. More general education teacher preparation programs address how teachers can better support the needs of all struggling learners, including students with disabilities, and SE faculty are increasingly assisting with this instruction. SE faculty are also predominately responsible for training future general educators on practices (e.g., progress monitoring) and frameworks (e.g., multi-tiered interventions such as RTI and positive behavioral interventions and supports [PBIS]).
The SE Retirement Dilemma
Retirement projections
Data collected from SE IHEs, SE teacher education programs, and coordinators for recent SE faculty searches suggest that retirements alone threaten to undermine much of the progress on the supply side that has been made over the last 10 years. Programs that offer doctorates in SE predict that, over the next 5 years, they will lose, at a minimum, 50% of their faculty due to retirements alone. This emerging trend is supported by data from job-search coordinators, who report that almost half of the most recent job searches were to replace faculty members who had retired.
Although normal attrition due to promotion, career shifts, and retirements is to be expected, retirements will surpass previous years. Most alarming is that these retirements will not be evenly dispersed across programs; rather, programs that offer doctoral degrees will experience a disproportionate share of the vacancies. Though the 97 doctoral programs in the nation represent only 9% of all SE personnel preparation programs, between half and two thirds of their faculty will retire in the next 5 years. Each of these programs has an average of eight FTE faculty. Therefore, between 388 and 520 doctoral faculty will be lost in the next 5 years.
The hypothesized impact
Retirements across all SE programs (doctoral and teacher education combined) are predicted to increase by 21% per year between 2011 and 2017. To fill the “retirement gap” created by faculty leaving SE doctoral and teacher education programs, each SE doctoral program will need to produce 9 graduates per year over the next several years. Compared with the average yearly production of 3 graduates per year, only half of which go into academe (Smith et al., 2012), each doctoral program will need to produce a total of 18 graduates per year. Put another way, each doctoral program will have to increase the current number of yearly graduates by 15. Improved supply cannot meet predicted demand.
As depicted in Figure 4, the real-world implications of this scenario are alarming. Based on our data, there are 776 faculty currently preparing the 1,779 students in the SE doctoral pipeline. This means, on average, each faculty member is producing 2 doctoral graduates. Assuming that the faculty at DGUs is reduced by half over the next 5 years, it is hypothesized that the number of doctoral students produced will also be reduced by half. This will trigger a domino effect, whereby at a first level, the percentage of doctoral graduates entering teacher education or SE educational leadership faculty positions will be reduced by 50%. This, in turn, will reduce the percentage of new SE teachers and SE school leaders by half. Current caseload estimates average around 20 SE students per teacher; however, there is great variability state to state (range = 1:9 to 1:35). Because of this variability, it is difficult to estimate how caseload estimates will change in the next several years. For illustrative purposes, assuming caseloads remain stable over the next 5 years and that the percentage of personnel with SE training is reduced by half at all levels, approximately 300 students with disabilities will be underserved for each missing faculty member at DGUs.
The impact of a shortage of SE faculty at doctoral granting universities on the number of SE teacher educators to prepare a sufficient supply of SE teachers necessary to provide appropriate SE services to students with disabilities
Call to Action
Implicit in IDEA is a belief that a free appropriate education can only be provided through high-quality pre- and in-service teacher preparation. High quality teacher preparation is connected to the quality of the training teacher educators receive (Darling-Hammond, 2005, 2006a, 2006b; Laczko-Kerr & Berliner, 2003; Montrosse, 2009; National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2011; West & Whitby, 2008). To provide quality training, an adequate supply of faculty to fill vacant positions in teacher preparation and doctoral training programs is needed. This is because it is these faculty members who are the producers of new knowledge in which evidence-based practices are derived. They also serve as a bridge between the academic and practical worlds by translating research for use in K-12 classrooms.
Clearly then, the predicted exodus of faculty from teacher preparation and doctoral training programs over the next 5 years due to retirement calls into question our ability to meet mandates contained in IDEA. The interconnection between SE doctoral programs, teacher training programs, and highly qualified teachers will be strained. We as a field, IHEs, and the federal government will need to be proactive and innovative in designing strategies for addressing the looming SE faculty shortage and the staffing pattern implications. Failure to act will undermine much of the progress made, and students with disabilities will be the ones ultimately disadvantaged.
Footnotes
The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Education.
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The contents of this article were developed under a grant from U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (H325U070001).