In the United States special education intake procedures (SEIP) originated primarily with the 50 state governments, which then typically allowed local school districts to interpret and implement these policies and practices according to particular local needs, interests, and resources. Consequently, international comparisons of how students are identified as requiring special education services and then placed in appropriate separate programs in public schools in the United States and other countries become highly problematic. Even so, the historical experience of the United States regarding the placement of students in special education does offer a key basis for international comparison and analysis: the professional preparation of special education teachers. In the early 1900s, special education intake procedures were based in local school districts and reflected structures and methods suggested by nationally respected educational and medical professionals and presented in widely read professional literature. As the 1900s progressed, the number of school districts offering special education increased dramatically, and state governments assumed much more authority in reviewing and regulating local district special education practices. As a result, structures regarding local district approaches to the identification and placement of students in special education programs in the United States became much more distinctive and diffuse. However, concurrent developments in the professionalization of teacher education led to a shift in any standardizing of special education practices from states and districts to institutions of teacher preparation. Throughout the first seven decades of twentieth century the United States developed teacher training programs and certification requirements for special education teachers that were quite similar—in effect standardized—regardless of location or kind of institution. By examining archives, public and private records, artifacts, and other evidence reflecting formal curriculum and practical training expectations for these programs, this paper will identify widespread expectations, assumptions, and agendas regarding preferred approaches to special education intake procedures and the crucial role that special education teachers have played in that process. It will also explore the ways in which these teacher education programs have shaped theory and practice in terms of the extent to which students identified as requiring special education services can and should be placed in regular education classrooms . Representative examples from a few specific institutions will serve as instructive case studies for justifying the more generalized analyses and conclusions of the paper.

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