Careers Menu
University Personnel Preparation Programs
Careers
in Special Education
The Council for Exceptional Children
(CEC), the leading national professional organization in special education,
has received money from the United States Department of Education to create
a web site dedicated to recruiting people into special education and related
fields. This resource, called the National Clearinghouse for Professions
in Special Education (NCPSE), has a great deal of information on all careers
associated with special education, as well as resources for school administrator
and college faculty involved in teacher recruitment. On this page, we
want to focus specifically on teachers and paraprofessional or paraeducators
through the links on the Clearinghouse’s career choices page at
http://www.special-ed-careers.org/career_choices/index.html.
If you haven’t done so already, click on the career choices
in the special education link. Please visit each of the links on the left
side of the page and answer the simple questions listed below:
• Who educates students with disabilities?
Click on The special education workforce. Under this link, make
sure you take a careful look at the information under the link for special
education teachers and paraeducators.
• Is Special Education the career for me?
Why people become special educators
What special educators do
About the students
Occupational outlook and typical salaries
Meet some special educators
Talk to a professional
• What is my next step?
(By the way, we’ll give you more information about this in the section
of this website entitled “University Personnel Preparation Programs”)
College and university programs
Federal money to become a special educator
Financial aid resources
State licensure requirements
Now that you have reviewed the Careers in Special Education site,
answer the following questions:
~What new information did you learn about paraeducators?
~What is the average salary of special education teacher in Kentucky…in
the United States?
~What does the job market for special education teacher look like over
the ten years or so?
~Why do people become special education teachers?
NICHCY (The National Information
Center for Children and Youth with Disabilities): is the national information
and referral center that provides information on disabilities and disability-related
issues for families, educators, and other professionals. It has developed
a report entitled “Who's Teaching Our Children with Disabilities?”
that provides an overview of special education as a career.
Click on the report and read at least the section “What
do special education teachers do?” on page 6-8 and the five “Days
in the life of…” special education teachers on pages 8, 9,
10, 11, and 12.
Finally, look at the section entitled “What do
special education teachers like about teaching?” on page 14 and
15.
After reading, “Who’s teaching our children
with disabilities?” answer these questions:
~Which of the five stories of a typical day in the life of a special education
teacher appealed to you the most and why?
~Did you learn anything new about what special education teachers do?
~Also what impressed you in the discussion of what special education teachers
like about teaching?
Now that you know more about special education as a career, you may want find out more about some of the college programs that prepare special education teachers here in Kentucky.