The Role Of Response To Intervention In Special Education

Identification: Truxton Academy Charter School acknowledges that all students have both strengths and weaknesses in their learning styles. We understand that students who begin to struggle academically need quality instruction and intervention strategies immediately. We know that early intervention at the kindergarten and 1st grade levels as well as early intervention in the academic year at all grade levels is very important for students’ long-term academic success. (Burns, M. K., Griffiths, A., Parson, L. B., Tilly, W. D., & VanDerHayden, A. (2007). Response to intervention: Research for practice.

The issue the author has presented in chapter 5 is what should educators teach students with moderate and severe developmental disabilities. The author states that she became interested in studying how students with moderate and severe disabilities might meet grade level academic content expectations mandated by No Child Left Behind. Despite the lack of evidence on teaching grade level academic content to students with cognitive disabilities, the federal government required schools to include students with moderate to severe disabilities in school accountability systems.

This paper focuses on the Response to Intervention. As educators we are hearing RTI more frequently in the school districts than ever before. Many educators and state officials agree that all teachers should know and get to know the benefits and importance of RTI. The most crucial aspect to know is the RTI takes place into the regular childhood classroom; this is not something that just special education teachers need to know. This paper explains the purpose and a brief history of RTI. The paper offers ways that it is beneficial for school districts to implement this research based program. However, as in many systems there are always challenges, the paper briefly discusses some of the challenges that educators

The role of the central office in the Response to Intervention (RTI) change initiative at Florence Middle School (FMS) began when the superintendent requested the school board approve the positions of the middle school interventionists in the district. Prior to the 2014-2015 school year, two high schools and the three middle schools in the district requested interventionists in anticipation of the new accountability model from the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE). The new accountability model calculated a school’s academic performance according to students’ growth on state assessments from one year to the next. Therefore, in 2013-2014, the schools requested interventionists be added to their faculties to better meet the needs of struggling students with significant learning gaps. The school board was unable to approve this request because the district’s budget could not afford the expense of the positions.

Response to Intervention (RtI) is a framework based off the problem solving method that integrates assessment, and targeted instruction, within a multi-tiered intervention system. Implementation of RtI in schools is crucial to identify which students need additional intervention that will help increase their literacy skills, and prevent them from falling behind. RtI is based off multi-leveled tiers that are each categorized by the intensity of the intervention that is being used. The RtI framework is also used as a valued tool in monitoring and improving student behavior in the classroom through a model known as Positive Behavioral Intervention Support (PBIS).

In 2006, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights reported that African American students represent 17.13% of the total public school population while they account for more than 26% of the children served in special education classrooms (Banks, J. j., & Hughes, M. S. 2013). Across all ethnic groups, African American students are at the highest risk of being placed in special education (Harry & Klinger, 2006). According to researcher Banks, once labeled as having a learning disability, African American students are less likely to be given the opportunity to be tested out of the remedial classes. (Banks, J. j., & Hughes, M. S. 2013)

In the 3rd step plan the implementation is when educators will monitor and provide feedback to ensure the intervention is delivers properly. And step 4 is to evaluate the problem, consultant and teacher will evaluate the responsiveness to the intervention and modify if needed. These steps result in a great intervention program that is precise to see desired results in the RTI. With intervention trial and error is how real results are achieved. In previous years before interventions and RTI’s were placed in schools, too many children were sent for learning disabilities or special education showing teachers inability or unwillingness to teach sand accommodate academic diversity ( Reynolds, 1987). The article states how teachers can generally implement learning strategies until the student gets it and if after interventions and RTi’s measure the responsiveness as not responsive the child can be placed in special education to receive IEP’s to adjust to their learning disability.

The purpose of Response to Intervention is early detection and identification of learning concerns of students and the development of an individualized plan that addresses the appropriate prescription for resolving the students’ academic or behavioral issue. In our twenty-first century learning communities, students are required to participate and are engaged in educational activities that may challenge their ability to grasp the concept in manners conducive to their learning styles. Schools are challenged to examine their methods of instruction to meet the needs of all children making them successful in all areas of academic content. “A quality school is a place where students learn to think and apply knowledge to new situations, where students are involved in and excited about their learning, where students make individual gains in process and knowledge, where adults know they care about individual students,

“A Critical Practice Analysis of Response to intervention Appropriation in an Urban School” written by Kathleen A. King Thorius, Brendan D. Maxcy, Erin Macey, and Adrienne Cox, highlights some key difficulties urban schools face through the enactment of Response to Intervention. Response to Intervention emerged in the early 2000’s when the field of special education was critiqued on the way they diagnosed and identified students with learning disabilities. RTI is done through interviews, mentoring and monitoring. The intensity of the intervention undergoes three or four tiers in particular; Tier 1 is when all students are provided with general education and are supervised based on the improvement and expectancy for the age and grade and Tier 2 occurs when the teachers are not noticing improvements. Tier 2 is simply when the specified students receive more skill-oriented testing and monitoring. If there is no improvement seen, they are moved to Tier 3, which is when the students receive the most intensive instruction. If there is no improvement in this tier, they are then receiving Tier 4 instruction, which is otherwise known as special education. RTI provides a structure of how to supply intervention for those children struggling academically in fields that they previously lacked. However, as displayed in this article, the context of what occurs during this meeting still requires a bit more structure.

Successmaker is an online research-based Response-To-Intervention. This paper is a critique of a 2012-13 study done by Gatti Evaluations Inc. The sample study covers eighteen schools from the Midwest and west coast. The schools implemented Successmaker for third and fifth grade interventions. The results showed that Successmaker improved reading and math deficiency areas.

For each Davis classroom there was a matching control group in the same school that followed the same reading programs, only without Davis Learning Strategies incorporated.

School districts are facing increasing pressure to adopt universal screening, progress monitoring, and data based assessments (Civic Impulse, 2016; Every Student Succeeds Acts, 2015; Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, 2004;). States are complying with these mandates by use of a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework. MTSS uses data based decision making to inform instruction and interventions that target academic, social, emotional, and behavioral skills from early childhood to secondary education (Jimerson, Burn s & Van Der Heyden, 2016). An important component of MTSS is delivering interventions and instructions based on student’s needs. After school programs are increasingly being researched as targeted academic,

Based on statements by Salvia et al. (2017), although RTI/MSS are new approaches, there is increasing evidence that RTI and MSS are more effective than the standard way of refer-test-serve model for students with disabilities. Interventions were more successful even with at-risk students, referrals to special education are reduced, less students were identified with learning disabilities, and studies show that there are improvements in reading and math assessment scores in areas that use the RTI/MSS Model. On the other end of the spectrum, there are questions raised in regard to RTI/MSS implementation integrity within some school systems. There are speculative reports that indicate that there are many questionable practices being held under

Special education is an ethically and politically complex area of professional education (Paul, French, & Cranston-Gingras, 2001). Critics have claimed that special education does not benefit student with disabilities and should be renounced for ethical reasons (Gartner & Lipsky, 1989). Others assert that special education is unethical because it stigmatizes and segregates minority students and violates the rights of children (Grossman, 1998; Granger & Granger, 1986). On the other hand, proponents of special education point to the effectiveness of intensive interventions in the area of reading (Wanzek & Vaughn, 2007), as well as literature reviews which have found special education services contribute more to the academic achievement of students with learning disabilities and emotional disorders than general education classrooms (citations from Fuchs). Although the overrepresentation (and underrepresentation) of certain minority populations is an ongoing concern for the field of special education, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) have long supported special education initiatives as long as the identification and labeling of students is “based on need, not race” (Dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, 2005). The debates over the effectiveness and identification of students with disabilities highlight a couple of the ways in ethical issues underlie special education. Yet, this is only the tip of the ethical iceberg. Issues of ethics

Attendance, behavior and academic performance are significant because they indicate the overall school effectiveness and students long-term outcomes with the implementation of SWPBIS (Freeman et al., 2015). Most research that is conducted on SWPBIS is taken place at elementary schools or middle schools, leaving the need to examine outcomes at the high school level (Freeman et al., 2015). For this reason, the purpose of the study was to analyze the relationship between Tier 1 of SWPBIS implemented with fidelity to determine academic, attendance and behavioral outcome measures across a large sample of high schools (Freeman et al., 2015). In order to determine the effectiveness of SWPBIS, a database was constructed across seven years (2005-2011) which combined elements from Special Education Programs used by schools trained in SWPBIS, as well as state level data obtain from public available state department websites (Freeman et al., 2015). A quasi-experimental was designed in order to determine the relationship between exposure to SWPBIS and school outcomes. Comparisons were made with school outcomes after SWPBIS was implemented and school outcomes prior to the implementation (Freeman et al., 2015). The implementation of SWPBIS measured fidelity across assessments such as SET and BoQ. This allowed schools and researchers to use both measures at different times and provide a better understanding of implementation across time (Freeman et al., 2015).