Using Stimulus IDEA Funds to Improve Teacher Distribution

In early September the Department of Education (ED) released additional guidance that provides details on how states and school districts can use Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) stimulus funds for reform activities. This guidance seeks to ease some of the inherent tension in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) goals of saving jobs and promoting education reform – a tension that likely has slowed the speed with which states and districts have been able to spend funds. However, one piece of the outlined reform efforts can bridge the gap between these two seemingly opposite goals. Specifically, the guidance provides methods for using ARRA IDEA funds to improve teacher effectiveness and distribution that also have important implications for the teacher workforce.

The guidance lays out four potential ways states and school districts might use ARRA IDEA funds to improve teacher effectiveness and distribution: dual certification, induction and mentoring, using technology in instruction, and assistive technology. Each of these methods seeks to dramatically improve the way teachers instruct special education students by providing them with powerful tools or knowledge.

Dual Certification
This method involves states and school districts using ARRA funds to provide high quality certification programs and effective professional development programs that result in certification to both special educators and general educators to increase their effectiveness with special education students. It also involves hiring highly qualified special education teachers in high-need schools.

Induction and Mentoring
This strategy includes using ARRA funds to fund novice special education teacher induction programs particularly in high need areas, hire substitute teachers to replace mentor special education teachers, and train mentor special education teachers in best practices.

Technology in Instruction
This approach involves using ARRA funds to purchase technology to improve instruction, provide professional development on proper use and integration of technology, and build staff expertise in the use of new systems. Additionally, it can involve hiring substitute teachers to allow special education staff to participate in training, self-assessment, and planning for the use of technology.

Assistive Technology
This method includes using ARRA funds to purchase assistive technology for special education students, create labs and libraries for the distribution of these devices, and provide training to teachers on how to best integrate these new technologies into instruction.

All four of these strategies present promising ways for states and school districts to incorporate innovative programs into special education instruction or otherwise reform how teacher training and distribution typically function in special education. But three of them also include provisions for saving or creating jobs in the special education sector by virtue of the new and one-time funds provided by the stimulus.

While many of the potential employment positions are for substitute teachers, which are temporary by design, these are jobs that would not have existed without federal stimulus funding. Additionally, the focus on short-term positions is in keeping with prior ED guidance that stimulus funding be spent in a manner that avoids “funding cliffs” like creating jobs they could not support in the absence of stimulus funding.

However, both dual certification and induction and mentoring open the door for rethinking and reorganizing the special education workforce by creating a multi-tiered system of novice, mentor, and master teachers that can better support each other and special education students while potentially saving money on teacher salaries in the long term. This represents an important step towards creating career ladders and differentiated responsibility in both the special education and general education workforce.

The new Department of Education guidance attempts to provide states and school districts with the information they need to ramp up spending of federal stimulus funds under the Individuals with Disabilities Act. Hopefully it will also empower them to use the funds to make significant changes in how both general and special education teachers and distributed and instruction is provided.