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Abstract
Career and technical education (CTE) provides students of all ability levels the opportunity to develop skills for a post-secondary career. When students with disabilities are included in CTE, educators are legally required to provide an appropriate program that meets each student's unique needs. There are, however, few discussions in the secondary education literature that describe the substance of these legal mandates. This article provides an overview of legal issues related to delivering an appropriate CTE program for students with disabilities including a review of legislation, relevant case law, and suggestions for practice.
Keywords: special education law, secondary education, career education, technical education
A career and technical education (CTE) is a viable option for secondary students regardless of their academic ability, social skill competence, or intentions for post-secondary education. However, secondary students with disabilities in CTE programs may require adaptations, accommodations, and specially designed instruction in order to benefit from the program. The literature provides many pragmatic suggestions for creating curricula that meet the needs of students with disabilities in CTE (Casale-Giannola, 2012; Ofoegbu, 2010; Schmidt, 2010; Trainor, 2012), but a curriculum that is peda- gogically sound does not negate a school district's responsibility to meet the requirements of federal legislation for serving students with disabilities.
As noted by Casale-Giannola (2012), CTE educators need not only to develop skills to support the curricular needs of students with disabilities, but also to become familiar with special education laws. Even practicing special education teachers, however, may lack a legal foundation. A study of 191 secondary education teachers who taught students with learning disabilities (Washburn-Moses, 2005) revealed that 22% of the participants believed that their preparation program did not provide sufficient knowledge of legal issues. This concern was second only to their desire for more information about curriculum and pedagogy (36%).
One might expect that legal issues would be part of a preparation programs for teachers of high school students with learning disabilities, but nearly a quarter of the teachers in the Washburn-Moses (2005) study indicated that they lacked an appropriate level of legal literacy. If special education teachers have felt underprepared, what might be true for general educators who do not have a background in special education but are expected to provide services in CTE...