Poster #97 - Recurring Reforms and Policy Amnesia: Evaluating the Re-adoption of All-Grades Special Education Certification in New York

• In Event: Friday Poster Reception

Abstract

Special education teacher shortages remain a critical and systemic challenge within the national educational landscape (Peyton et al., 2021). These vacancies do not merely represent administrative hurdles; they result in widening academic inequities as marginalized students frequently receive instruction from uncertified personnel with limited understanding of instructional support for neurodivergent learners. Drawing on Cuban’s (1990) theory of recurring reforms, this paper analyzes New York State’s move to phase out specialized grade-banded certifications (e.g., Grades 1–6, 7–12) in favor of a broad PreK-12 "All Grades" certification. This policy shift is historically significant, mirroring a generalist model that New York discarded in 2004 following criticism that it failed to address the distinct developmental and pedagogical needs of students. Cuban’s framework provides a lens to explore whether policymakers have correctly identified how to solve the teacher shortage problem or if they are merely replicating a "solution" that fails to account for the realities of practitioners and students.

This paper utilizes the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to analyze public comments from the New York State Education Department’s (NYSED) June 1, 2022, Notice of Proposed Rule Making. Through inductive qualitative coding, this study examines the competing narratives of diverse stakeholders. Proponents frame the "All Grades" certificate as a necessary tool for administrative flexibility, arguing that current grade bands limit their ability to respond to enrollment shifts, staff buildings that span multiple certifications, and maintain consistent teacher-student relationships. For these stakeholders, the shift is rooted in the need to deploy special educators to wherever mandates are hardest to fulfill. Conversely, the opposition narrative frames the policy as a devaluation of specialized expertise. These commenters argue that teaching is a profession requiring the nuanced understanding of human growth codified in the Council for Exceptional Children (2020) standards and federal law (IDEA). They contend that the "All Grades" model ignores fundamental developmental stages and the specialized pedagogical and content expertise required at each.

Preliminary analysis of revised teacher preparation programs suggests a troubling paradox: required educational credits have not shifted significantly despite the vastly expanded certification scope. In some instances, requirements for the new All Grades certification involve fewer credits than previous joint-certification programs, which historically incorporated both developmentally specialized pedagogical content and coursework on supporting neurodivergent learners. Therefore, if education requirements have not expanded to reflect the wider knowledge base now required of special educators, the question remains: where have the instructional shifts or sacrifices occurred? While the state targets certification flexibility, practitioners argue the root causes of the shortage are systemic workplace conditions. Because research shows that underprepared teachers leave the field at higher rates (Saunders & Skinner, 2025), this study concludes that the "All Grades" shift may inadvertently accelerate attrition and replicate past inequities by placing the least-prepared teachers with the most vulnerable students.

Author

• Joselina Tejada, CUNY, Hunter College
  Presenting Author