Roundtable Discussion: Meeting the Highly Qualified Teacher Criteria for Special Education Teachers. Hearing before the Subcommittee on Education and Early Childhood Development of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, United States Senate, One Hundred Ninth Congress, First Session (April 27, 2005) S. Hrg. 109-78

The purpose of this countable was to discuss the requirements of No Child Left Behind that about 200,000 teachers--special education teachers who teach children in special education classes or who are severely disabled and who teach multiple subjects in middle school and in high school--be "highly qualified," and what exactly that means. In his opening statement, Honorable Lamar Alexander stated that one witness, himself a teacher, posed three questions that seemed to best represent the point of the hearing: (1) What exactly do I have to do by the end of the next school year to demonstrate that I am highly qualified using the House option? (2) Will I have sufficient time to meet the requirements? and (3) What will the consequences be to me if I do not prove myself to be highly qualified? This roundtable set out to determine whether Congress has created barriers for special education teachers and to learn what Congress can do to achieve the objectives set out in the No Child Left Behind and the IDEA legislation. Testimony was presented by: Lamar Alexander (R-TN); Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA); Jeff Sessions (R-AL); John H. Hagar, Assistant Secretary, Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, U.S. Department of Education; Accompanied by Carolyn Snowbarger, Director, Teacher-To-Teacher Initiative, and Special Assistant for Teacher Quality, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education; Rene Islas, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education; Jeffrey Langham, Superintendent of Education, Elmore County School System, Wetumpka, Alabama; James McLeskey, Professor and Chair, Department of Special Education, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida; Carol Ann Baglin, Assistant State Superintendent, Division of Special Education/Early Intervention Services, Maryland State Department of Education, Baltimore, Maryland; William Connolly, Teacher, Quirk Middle School, Hartford, Connecticut; Lana C. Seivers, Commissioner of Education, Tennessee; and Mary Senne, Parent and Disability Community Advocate, Orlando, Florida.