Special education
Join an online event
Monday, March 15
8 pm EST
Hear from a panel of corps members about teaching and succeeding in special education.
Only 12 percent of high school students with learning disabilities and 18 percent of high school students with autism meet reading standards.3
Only 41 percent of young adults with disabilities make more than $7 per hour after leaving school.4
Students who receive special education services are often overlooked, and their success is held back by differences in expectations and an inability to meet their unique needs. This creates an "achievement gap within the achievement gap." Teach For America seeks people with drive, focus, and passion to serve students with disabilities.
Providing the education that everyone deserves
The National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2007 showed that students with disabilities are already behind in math and reading by the fourth grade and fall further back by the eighth grade.1 This issue is further pronounced in low-income communities, resulting in an achievement gap within the achievement gap.2 This does not mean that students with disabilities can’t learn; it means they are not receiving the specialized education they need to improve their life trajectories.
Corps members, like the ones below, are demonstrating that students who receive special education services are just as capable as other students of making significant academic gains. Special education teachers don’t seek simple solutions – instead, their job is to work relentlessly to provide the services and support students need to be able to access grade-level content. Their sense of possibility is complemented by requirements at the national level; the No Child Left Behind Act calls for nearly all students to meet proficiency standards by the 2013-14 school year; indeed, the vast majority of students with disabilities are held accountable to the same general education, grade-level standards as their non-disabled peers.
Succeeding in special education
Special educators work to maximize their students’ access to the general education curriculum and minimize the impact of their disabilities. They lead their students to make significant academic gains by setting ambitious goals, analyzing the needs of each individual student, and using data to differentiate their approach. Most of our corps members teach students with specific learning disabilities, health impairments such as ADD or ADHD, or emotional and behavioral disabilities. A smaller number of our special education corps members teach students with speech and language impairments, autism, or intellectual disabilities. Our special educators also teach in a variety of settings, including self-contained, resource, and inclusion classrooms.
Because special education is not a content area, special educators need the same training all corps members receive; this includes training specific to the content area(s) (math, science, English, social studies) they teach. Special education corps members also receive additional training related to their unique roles and responsibilities. Corps members continue to develop their skills through ongoing professional support. Topics for differentiated training include:
- Setting goals at the intersection of ambitious and feasible for students with disabilities
- Working effectively and serving students in a variety of settings
- Working closely with students’ families and teams of service providers to write individualized education programs (IEPs) for the students with disabilities they serve
Learn about a day in the life of a special education corps member 
Corps members and alumni: in their own words
Emily Green
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- Corps: New Mexico Corps '07
- Alma Mater: University of Texas, Special Education
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 Teachers serve as the nation's ultimate gift givers; they give the gifts of reading, writing, math, and understanding. Unfortunately, up to 10 percent of students have some form of identified disability that inhibits them from learning. They are not able to receive the gifts that their teachers offer. Special education teachers have the amazing opportunity to work with these students, help prevent them from failing, and ensure that they too have access to an excellent education.
When I first walked into my classroom as a special education teacher, I encountered a group of frustrated students. They really wanted to read, yet did not understand how. We began at the beginning and persistently worked to fill in the skills and concepts they had missed along the way. We covered everything from vowel sounds to rhyming words, from comprehension strategies to sight words.
Two years later, six of these students now read at grade level. Another three have made over three years progress in reading in less than two years. They have gained the ability to read and understand. Even greater, they have gained the gift of self confidence.
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Elsie Urueta
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- Corps: St. Louis Corps '07
- Alma Mater: University of Oklahoma, International Business and Marketing
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There is no doubt that our students with special needs are those in dire need of good teachers. Our special education students need the most support, but sadly they often receive less.
My sixth grade students started off the school year at reading levels ranging from pre-K to fourth grade. I knew that I had to set individual goals to ensure that each student was challenged and had opportunities to grow. I then showed the students reading assignments at their current reading levels and compared them to reading assignments at their goal reading level. This turned out to be extremely helpful, as students were able to conceptualize exactly what two years growth in reading meant. Lastly, I customized instruction to meet the needs of my higher-level readers, lower-level readers, and those in the middle.
One of my students entered my classroom without knowing the letters of the alphabet. By the end of the year, he advanced two years by reading at a mid-first grade reading level. My other students enjoyed similar results. At the end of the year, every student in the class improved by one and a half to three grade levels in reading.
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Marina Thompson
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- Corps: Indianapolis Corps '08
- Alma Mater: Berea College, Sociology
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Students with exceptional needs learn in different ways than other students. This simple fact is often overlooked by many due to the intimidating paperwork required for a student with additional mental, physical, or emotional needs. And for that reason, special education students often receive less of an education than other students. Although these students learn differently than many others, they learn nonetheless.
This year, my students started out with limited to no knowledge of geography, sociology and world and U.S. history. After assessing the students' subject matter knowledge, I asked about their life experiences and their backgrounds so that I could tie their world to the world of history. Immediately, students drew on their personal interests and saw how they connected to the broader world around them. Once that happened, their interest and mastery of the content accelerated quickly.
I also worked to understand how each individual student learned. That meant figuring out how well they read and how they understood and communicated information that they were learning. This knowledge allowed me to provide each student with the materials he or she needed to best understand what I expected them to learn.
My students went from having a unit mastery average of just 15 percent to averaging between 82 percent and 94 percent per unit. Overall for the year, nearly every student met their 80 percent mastery goal. Students would come in and tell me they had aced the Jeopardy!™ questions about history the night before thanks to the information they had covered in my class. They applied their knowledge of history to develop story lines for classroom newscasts and discussion panels. And when they didn't hit their personal goals of 90 percent or higher for a year average, they were motivated to try harder, always pushing themselves to learn and understand the material.
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Dixon Deutsch
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- Corps: New York Corps '04
- Occupation: Director of Special Education Achievement, Achievement First
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Some say special education is the last educational civil rights issue of our time. With the current number of students with special needs in New York City standing at well over 135,000 students, the call for new special educators is striking. It used to be that special education students were relegated to limited resources and low expectations, but gone are those days. There is a strong call for educators with the mindset that all students, regardless of disability, can and should be given a high-quality education and greater life opportunities. The energy, smarts, and enthusiasm of Teach For America teachers is needed in some of our most demanding and deprived classrooms.
As an alumnus, I am working as the Director of Special Services Achievement for Achievement First charter schools in New York to make special education top notch and high quality. I work with an amazing team of dedicated educators at nine school sites. They strive to live and breathe the mission of Teach For America by delivering a great education for all of our students with special needs.
Since coming to Achievement First in 2006, I have seen the special education team grow from eight to more than 25 professionals excited to extend the Achievement First mission to all students with special needs. Teach For America alumnus account for 10 of those educators. Working with my team, we have developed the processes and systems of an organized and efficient special education system; built great relationships with local Committees of Special Education teams; helped establish and plan for a special education cooperative among charter schools in Brooklyn; and developed teaching models that help our scholars succeed. While we are still on the journey of building a world-class special education program, we are focusing on tracking the achievement data for the special education service given to our students, building effective instructional techniques, and developing inclusion and co-teaching models to further include and reach all students with disabilities. This journey is exciting for motivated educators who believe that all students, regardless of disabilities, can and should be given an educational experience that closes an achievement gap that is alarming and growing.
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1. The State of Learning Disabilities (2009). In math, the proficiency gap between students with disabilities and general education students grew from 25 percent to 31 percent; in reading, the gap grew from 34 percent to 43 percent. The results from studies on students with disabilities cannot always be generalized. In some cases, studies do not include all students with disabilities because of their individualized education plan requirements or inabilities to accommodate their unique needs.
2. U.S. Department of Education Fiscal Year 2009 Plan (2008). Reading and math proficiency for students with disabilities is 16.6 percent and 14.5 percent lower, respectively, than their peers in low-income communities.
3. Swanson, Christopher (2008). Special Education in America.
4. Ibid.
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