Special Education Leadership and the Pursuit of Ethical Practice

            Special educators who serve students in inclusive educational settings as well as those serving students with severe disabilities are more likely to experience complex and fragmented work lives.  While special education has become a major concern for school leaders, too few studies have addressed the supervisory practices or the contributions and roles for teacher leadership in special education (York-Barr, Sommerness, Duke & Ghere., 2005; Bays and Crockett,2007; Billingsley, 2007; Bagley & Tang, 2018).  This lack of knowledge related to effective supervision and promotion of teacher leaders may be a contributing factor to why special educators are more likely to depart the educational profession (Ingersoll, 2001) or why students with special needs do not always receive optimal FAPE.

Bays and Crockett (2007) found principals attempting to balance management, administrative, and supervisory duties; monitoring legal compliance; and ensuring instructional quality exhibited minimal level of interactions with teachers regarding the improvement of teaching and learning for students with special needs.  Desiring to contribute knowledge and strategies that would result in improved support of special educators seeking inclusive, high quality educational experiences for students with disabilities, York-Barr et al’s well-grounded qualitative research (2005) aligned with and extended previous findings by the Council for Exceptional Children (2001) and yielded eight major findings organized into three clusters:

·         the nature of the work of special educators,

·         special educators demonstrating leadership functions, and

·         differentiated support realized from others. 

Finding few references to the leadership roles of special educators, Billingsley (2007) explored potential contributions of teacher leadership for special education by reviewing select teacher literature from general education-- including the “emergence of new teacher roles in schools, the roots and meanings of teacher leadership, and potential benefits of teacher leadership” (p. 164).  Conducting a meta-analysis of nearly 50 articles and studies was conducted in addition to a case-study interview with a special education teacher who possessed nearly thirty- years of experience during which time she reviewed the professional literature to develop the Supports with Imagination and Meaning (SWIM) program, Billingsley (2007) selected and reviewed teacher leadership literature in general education, including the emergence of new teacher roles in schools, roots and meanings of teacher leadership, and possible benefits of teachers as leaders.  After reviewing several examples of teacher leadership in special education, Billingsley investigated barriers to teacher leadership and ways of supporting the work of teacher leaders.  As a result, Billingsley found support in the literature for the belief that serving the needs of students with disabilities requires multiple leaders across school-wide and district-wide levels.  Teacher leadership can be present in different forms for varied purposes, including management, instruction, and school reform.  Therefore, teacher leadership may be structured either formally or informally as it evolves through presented opportunities and explicit needs within schools.

Whenever teachers are provided on-going opportunities to learn through experiences, experiment with new ideas, and then creatively implement new programs then they are more likely to become teacher leaders in both their schools and communities.  These opportunities are beneficial by allowing prospective teacher leaders to develop broader perspectives related to the identified needs within schools and across the district.  This encourages reflection about their own practices and provides variety in their work and recognition of their expertise.  Therefore, these new roles and opportunities to influence others serve as critical forms of renewal for special educators.

Special educators become leaders by adeptly confronting barriers to the education of students who have disabilities, rather than accepting the norms and values of the status quo (Billingsley, 2007, p. 166).  Through focus group interviews with special educators selected based on documented effectiveness serving students with low-incidence disabilities York-Barr et al. (2005) found it is better to “understand their realities of practice in inclusive education and to identify supports for such practice” (p. 193). Although York-Barr et al did not specifically focus upon teacher leadership, they did discuss how special educators served as “informal leaders” (p. 200) by articulating “a sophisticated understanding of how their schools and districts functioned organizationally and politically” (p. 193). They also suggested that teacher leaders provided the vision, direction, and plans for special education and encouraged prospective teacher leaders to collaborate and advocate across multiple levels within their educational systems, thereby leveraging the social, structural and fiscal resources beneficial for students with disabilities.  In doing so, prospective teacher leaders project a concrete understanding that the degree to which they are connected in a school influences the degree to which students with disabilities are connected, supported, and provided opportunities for success within the culture of the school (p. 211).

Analyzed research, drawn conclusions, and provided implications for future practice or research by York-Barr, et al, (2005); Bays and Crockett (2007); as well as Billingsley (2007) were each grounded within the conceptual framework of special education leadership and the ethical treatment of students with special needs.  While each study’s limited sample certainly restricts the ability to generalize results, the shared references amongst and between the collective researchers served to narrow the focus of each study while expanding the implications of individual results to the field of special education and educational leadership. Clearly further research on teacher leadership in special education is required to promote the opportunities for teacher leaders in schools and optimize student learning in the least restrictive environment. Possible research questions suggested by Billingsley include:

•          What is the nature of teacher leaders’ roles at the school (e.g., elementary, secondary) and district levels?
•          What factors (e.g., personal, organizational, preparation) influence the exercise of special education leadership by both special and general educators?

o   How does the culture of the district and school influence teacher leaders’ work?

o   How do special education leaders learn to work within the social organization of their schools?” (173)

        Additionally, related to previous research by Anderson (2017), it is not yet known if and to what degree elementary schools that are led by leaders exhibiting high emotional intelligence (EQ) would have teachers exhibiting high EQ.  Are such schools more likely to have students receiving education in an inclusive setting?  These are all crucial questions that beg for further research on effective teacher leadership in special education.            

To Cite:

Anderson, C.J. (November 30, 2020). Special education leadership and the pursuit of ethical

practice. [Web log post] Retrieved from http://www.ucan-cja.blogspot.com/

 

References

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