NCLB and the Demand for Highly Qualified Teachers: Challenges and Solutions for Rural Schools

Abstract

Teacher shortages in special education have been a source of longstanding concern for professionals and parents involved in the education of students with disabilities. Because of their geographic location, culture, and lack of resources, rural administrators have always struggled to staff their schools with qualified special education teachers. No Child Left Behind and its definition of highly qualified teacher present new challenges to rural district administrators attempting to secure adequate numbers of special education teachers. In this paper, we outline the challenges rural administrators face in reducing special education teacher shortages, present strategies being used nationally and regionally to reduce strategies, and critique those strategies. We conclude our paper by advocating for a more comprehensive approach to solving teacher supply and demand problems, one that is driven by personnel data.