We do not have an accurate count of the number of teachers of students with visual impairments working in the field, and it is a difficult number to estimate. As part of a national survey, states were contacted to estimate how many teachers of students with visual impairments are working in the United States and compared to the estimate developed by the National Plan for Training Personnel to Serve Children with Blindness and Low Vision (NPTP) in 2000.
Results and Discussion
The estimate calculated from this process is very similar to the estimate from NPTP (2000), indicating that there are roughly the same number of teachers of students with visual impairments in the field now as there were 20 years ago.
KirchnerC.DiamentD. (1999). Estimates of the number of visually impaired students, their teachers, and orientation and mobility specialists: Part 2. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 93(11), 738–744. https://doi.org/10.1177/0145482X9909301108
U.S. Department of Education (USED), EDFacts Data Warehouse (EDW): “IDEA Part B Child Count and Educational Environments Collection,”2019–20. Data extracted as of July 8, 2020 from file specifications 002 and 089.https://www2.ed.gov/programs/osepidea/618-data/static-tables/index.html
6.
U.S. Department of Education & Office of Postsecondary Education. (2021). Teacher shortage areas nationwide listings 1990–1991 through 2020–21. DC: U.S. Department of Education. https://tsa.ed.gov/#/reports
