Teacher Preparation: A Comparison With General Teacher Education

242 THE JOURNAL OF SPECIAL EDUCATION VOL. 38/NO. 4/2005/PP. 242–252 Chronic teacher shortages in special education, as well as con-cerns about a dwindling teacher workforce in general, have led to a variety of alternative routes to the classroom. The na-ture of these alternative routes is largely unknown, as is their capacity for ensuring that qualified special education teachers are available to serve students with disabilities (Rosenberg & Sindelar, 2001). Moreover, the development of alternative routes comes at a time when teacher education is under fire for its perceived inability to prepare quality teachers. Critics argue that teacher education programs make no contribution to K–12 student achievement, are not intellectu-ally challenging, and act as deterrents to bright, young people interested in entering the classroom (Finn & Kanstroom, 2000; Walsh, 2001). The federal government recently lent consider-able credence to this position. Specifically, the U.S. Secretary of Education, in a highly controversial report (U.S. Depart-ment of Education, 2002), claimed that a teacher’s verbal abil-ity and subject matter knowledge are key factors in improving student achievement, whereas the role of teacher education is questionable. Teacher education advocates counter that positive cor-relations exist between teacher certification status and stu