will ake wae pext ct Eerie! omit ne: mdi be a apigre on vi ancl ne is ace cach) “an ona Sey1;Be "‘hswy anducted aL Qlhe &bea and thy a wae aeenbe “th f a ‘hel ef eee Mes, wl ih snd oa raed Nene a be ad ™ og of aene aesacti ee wer Fsna OF EDUCATION Special Ed Program PromotesDiversity @ (NAPSA)—By the year 2009, it’s estimated 40 percent of students in K-12 classrooms will be from diverse cultural backgrounds. However, it is also estimated that only 12 percent of their teachers will reflect the samecultural andlinguistic diversity. Educators and parents are particularly concerned about the effect of this trend in thefield of special education. re, the need to match students’ and teachers’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds has been shown to be critical to student success. U.S. Department of Education, through its Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), is addressing this issue by an initiative called the Alliance Project. program helps colleges and universities, whose minority student population is greater than 25 percent, get grants to prepare students to be special educators. Alliance Project’s grant writing assistance has enabled more than 192 special education preparation programs to be up and operating in 2000 alone. Over the past 10 years, colleges and universities that prepare minority special educators have received over $23.5 million from OSEP. To learn more, call the Na- tional Clearinghouse for Professions in Special Education at 1800-641-7824 or visit the Web site at www.special-ed-careers.net.
