RTI Summit Delves into Implementation, Current and Future Issues

Education professionals from 48 states and seven territories convened on Dec. 6-7, 2007, at the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED’s) Summit on Response to Intervention (RTI). The state teams, which were composed of special and general educators, from superintendents to teachers, and parents, developed a plan to implement or improve RTI in their respective states. In addition, team members attended sessions to learn about RTI implementation, including how to include specific student populations in the process.

RTI is a multi-step approach to providing services to struggling students and may be used to help identify learning disabilities. Teachers provide instruction and interventions to students who have difficulty learning at increasing levels of intensity. They also monitor the progress students make at each intervention level and use the assessment results to decide whether the students need additional instruction or intervention in general education or referral to special education.

The 2006 regulations on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) specifically addressed identification procedures for learning disabilities. The regulations stated that districts must allow a process for identifying students with learning disabilities that is based on a child’s response to scientific, research-based interventions. This, plus a growing body of research on RTI, spawned increased interest in the process across the nation. Currently, some states are just learning about RTI, while others have been using RTI, or some form of RTI, for 10 years or more. With the impetus from the law, ED, and educators, it is likely that many districts and schools will, at a miniumum, explore implementing RTI; others will embrace it.

Keynote speaker George Sugai, professor at the University of Connecticut, stressed that RTI is not, in fact, new. Educators have been using many approaches and strategies involved in RTI for years, he said. However, RTI provides a framework that allows educators to better organize their strategies, and thus, better meet the academic and social needs of all students, Sugai added. RTI addresses the need for improved comprehensive screening, early and timely decision making, data-based decision making, and support for students who do not respond to instruction or intervention. Additional areas that RTI supports are improved instructional accountability and justification, alignment of assessment and instruction, and use of resources and time.

Sugai identified six elements critical to RTI:

• Implementing interventions with fidelity, that is, interventions are conducted as specified by the intervention’s developers.
• A continuum of evidence-based interventions.
• Student performance, which demonstrates the effectiveness of instruction.
• Continuous progress monitoring.
• Universal screening for all students.

While these elements sound straightforward, they have significant implications for states, Sugai said. Almost all factors of their educational system will be affected, including curriculum and instruction, measurement requirements, the role and function of general and special educators, and fidelity to instructional programs.

However, RTI provides a means by which a school-wide continuum of instructional and behavioral support can be provided to students, Sugai added. Through RTI, 80-90 percent of the student population receives universal interventions, 5-10 percent targeted group interventions, and 1-5 percent intensive, individual interventions. There is data showing improvement in students’ academic and behavioral progress using this system, according to Sugai.

Despite the fact that we still need to refine technology, practices, and RTI systems, as well as determine this process’s implications for practice, RTI is a “good thing” for all students, families, and schools, Sugai concluded.

Using RTI to Identify Learning Disabilities
One of the biggest questions about RTI, and a subject of a breakout session at the summit, is whether or not it can be used to determine a learning disability (LD). While some say all students who do not respond to instruction should be considered LD, others maintain that RTI does not provide enough information to make that determination.

“There are a lot of reasons why a student does not respond to instruction,” says Daryl Mellard, a principal investigator with the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities. “One practical example would be the quality of the intervention itself.”

Don Deshler, professor at the University of Kansas and presenter for RTI and LD Identification: The Evolving Picture, agrees. To determine whether or not a student has a learning disability, you need multiple measurements and a team decision, he said.

“RTI is a very important piece of information that should be part of the overall determination decision-making process (for LD), but it is one piece of information about a student’s performance or non-responsiveness under certain conditions,” Deshler said.

Deshler further stated that data from RTI can help us decide what additional information we should collect about a student, such as information on potential language or memory problems, that might account for his or her difficulty learning in the current program.

This is only one issue concerning RTI and LD identification that has not been resolved. Another is whether we are denying students access to special education services by trying multiple interventions at a lower tier.

Furthermore, the validity of the RTI process as a means of identifying LD has been called into question.

“The whole RTI system hasn’t been validated against an alternative model,” said Mellard. “We have no research that has contrasted RTI with any other model.”

Finally, identifying students with LD at the secondary level is an area in which we have little information.

RTI: Beyond the Basics
George Batsche, professor at the University of South Florida, brought multiple years of experience with RTI to his session, RTI: Beyond the Basics. He posited recommendations to implementing RTI ranging from how to change belief systems to the nitty-gritty of practical application.

Getting Buy In and Changing the System for RTI
When deciding to implement RTI, a district needs to get the majority of its educators and staff on board, said Batsche. As a first step, the district should develop a common vision, such as “Ninety-five percent of our students will reach proficiency,” he added. Districts should also administer a “belief survey” on RTI before and after professional development. These types of activities build consensus around RTI, which is essential if people are to use it, explained Batsche. Even then, he warns that districts can expect one-two years of pushback from educators, who can become overwhelmed by RTI. He recommends keeping the lines of communication open and continuing to give teachers data showing the effectiveness of the process. This will help them cope with the many changes and uncertainties that accompany RTI implementation.

Batsche also said that for RTI to work well districts and schools must have a strong infrastructure in place. This entails developing standard protocols for providing services for students within the different tiers and determining which interventions the school will use. By looking at two-three years of data, schools can see which types of interventions they usually need for their student population, Batsche stated.

Technology is another integral part of a workable RTI system. It is essential to handle the large amounts of data that are critical to RTI implementation.

“You can’t compile and work with the data (required by RTI) by hand,” stated Batsche.

Equally important is a “data coach,” who helps educators interpret and use the data at district, building and class levels, and a facilitator for the problem solving process, who makes sure educators get the right data to make decisions.

Batsche further stated that it is essential that general and special educators participate in RTI.

Finally, while Batsche stressed that it is important that there be parallel structures for RTI at the state, district, and building levels so services are aligned, he also said each school must perform its own analysis for RTI implementation because the school must meet its particular student population’s needs.

Cascade of Instruction for RTI
Schools using RTI must determine a protocol for instruction and intervention, as well as provide continuous program monitoring evaluations that are tied to state standards, recommended Batsche. At Tier 1, schools must examine the effectiveness of their instruction for all students. Effective core instruction is a first, imperative step in RTI implementation, he said.

For Tier 2, as mentioned above, each school needs to determine its number one referral problem. From this information, schools can decide which intervention to use with its students. Batsche, and other RTI experts, recommended that schools use only one evidence-based intervention for students who are not responding to instruction at Tier 2 as well as one intervention protocol, i.e., how long students will receive the intervention.

Batsche further stated that intervention support is critical. Individuals who are knowledgeable about the intervention must be available for an extended time to guide teachers and ensure the interventions are being implemented as they should be, he said.

“Someone must be responsible for ensuring interventions are implemented with integrity,” said Batsche.  That is, educators must present the instructional program as is specified by its developers.

Batsche also recommended that teachers document the interventions they implement, putting on paper the intervention, each day the student received the intervention, and for how long. With all the interruptions in a school day, it is easy for a scheduled intervention to fall by the way side. Documenting interventions increases the likelihood that they will happen, said Batsche.

Students who receive Tier 3 interventions are those who do not respond to Tier 2 interventions. Some may need Tier 3 interventions, which are the most intensive, to meet benchmark goals and can only do so with Tier 3 level support; other students may not be able to meet benchmark goals even with Tier 3 level support. While some students receiving Tier 3 level services may not have the characteristics for special education, others will be identified as having a disability, said Batsche.

RTI at the Secondary Level
RTI at the secondary level presents its own set of challenges. Two issues are important for older students, according to Deshler, who, with Joe Kovaleski, headed the session, RTI and Secondary Education: What Are the Implications?”  The first issue is that the number of students who are identified as LD past the fourth or fifth grade drops precipitously. Some students’ disability may not be manifested until the later grades, when the curriculum demands change considerably; and we have not yet developed progress monitoring for the diverse, intricate skills and knowledge sets that are required in secondary settings, said Deshler. At the secondary level, students must understand multiple word meanings and engage in social conversation and group discussion of abstract ideas as well as master complex content in science, social studies, literature, and other subjects.

Second, in RTI teachers come together to examine student profiles and collaboratively determine interventions and instructional strategies. At the secondary level, there is rarely a venue (such as grade level teams) for teachers to do this, said Deshler.

However, on the positive side, these issues do not disqualify RTI as an operational system at the secondary level, added Deshler. Educators have developed a tiered framework of interventions at the secondary level, such as in literacy, and the results have been encouraging, he explained.

RTI, IEPs, and Adequate Yearly Progress
Lynn Fuchs, professor at Vanderbilt University and a co-presenter for Student Assessment, RTI, and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), showed how curriculum-based measurement (CBM) can help schools meet AYP goals by tracking school progress over time, class progress throughout the year, and individual student progress throughout the year.

Fuchs recommends that educators use CBM, a form of progress monitoring, to track student progress. CBM provides several advantages over other assessment measures such as mastery measurement for tracking student progress, said Fuchs. In addition to its reliability, validity, and instructional utility, CBM allows teachers to teach skills in the order that best meets student needs, precludes misleading student performance on single-skill assessments (i.e., students can only perform the skill on the test), and reflects the student’s ability to maintain or generalize skills. Additionally, CBM relates well to student performance on high-stakes tests.

CBM can help educators determine whether or not students are responding to instruction or should receive more intensive interventions, as well as help ensure students with disabilities at Tier 3 meet their IEP and AYP goals. This is done by administering CBM to the student each week, graphing the scores, then examining the student’s slope (or weekly rate of improvement) toward these goals. If the student is on track (his or her graph shows an adequate slope and projected end level), he or she can return to primary or secondary prevention. Those students with inadequate slopes and projected end levels would remain in Tier 3 prevention. In both cases, the student would continue to receive progress monitoring to assess if and when intervention at different tiers is required.

CBM can also help teachers determine whether their class will meet AYP goals. Teachers would administer CBM to each student monthly (weekly for students at Tier 2 or 3). Then, the teachers would graph the number of students in the class who are meeting the CBM benchmark each month.

Schools, too, can track their progress toward AYP using CBM, said Fuchs. To do this, schools perform an initial assessment to determine the number of students who currently meet CBM benchmarks. Then the school identifies the annual increase in the number of students who must achieve benchmarks each year to achieve the 2014 goal of universal proficiency. Schools can use this number to calculate the annual goal for each year remaining before 2014.

 
Resources
CEC’s Position Statement on RTI:
http://www.cec.sped.org/Content/NavigationMenu/PolicyAdvocacy/CECProfessionalPolicies/default.htm

CEC Resources on RTI:
http://www.cec.sped.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Response_to_Intervention&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=37&ContentID=8363

www.ideapartnership.org

Response to Intervention: A Practical Guide for Every Teacher:
http://www.cec.sped.org/ScriptContent/Orders/ProductDetail.cfm?section=Online_Store&pc=S5839

Progress Monitoring Tools:
www.studentprogress.org

Reading Interventions:
www.fcrr.org

Using CBM to track student progress toward AYP, Fuchs, L.S., & Fuchs, D. (2004). Determining adequate yearly progress from kindergarten through grade six with curriculum-based measurement. Assessment for Effective Instruction, 29(4), 25-38.