Doctorate in Special Education?

I always thought a doctorate in education seemed unnecessary without plans to teach at the college or university level. It certainly would not make me a better teacher in the classroom. Pursuing a doctorate degree needs to be for me, because I want to learn more, because some particular topic has peaked my interest and I need to know more about it. One day last week, Mr. K1 teacher sent email about a talk he had went to at his company. He thought about how that idea could be applied to special education students. I was pretty intrigued. Since then, I have thought about it more and tossed around the idea of a PhD so I could further investigate.

Then I thought of my dear friend Alexandra, who writes the Brainy and Beautiful blog and a recent conversation I had with her. She raised some good questions about higher education and insisted it wasn't the only way to learn something. She pointed out that following some predetermined curriculum didn't necessarily help a person to reach their goals. She questioned the necessity of higher education degrees. I suppose that I could read countless research papers on my interest area and just absorb knowledge. Which sounds doable now, that I am on summer break. Could I keep that up when school starts and responsibilities pick up? If I did a doctorate and did some successful research, would it even make a difference to real students?

I guess for now I will toss my idea around in my head a bit more. Stay tuned!