The Current State of Response to Intervention 2011 Tom Green, Ed. D. trenwickgreen@gmail.com 650/759-4643 CARS Plus February 18, 2011
The purpose of this workshop is to: 1) Provide educators with a framework to analyze the current effectiveness of all available support programs for below grade level students. Although this workshop focuses on special education, the redesign of special education cannot be done in isolation from all support services.
2) Acquaint educators with the key elements of effective redesign and coordination of all available support programs, including general education classroom core instruction, remedial support programs, special education, and extended learning settings.
3) Provide educators with sample tools to begin this process at site and district levels.
Our legal, professional, social, and moral mission in public education: All students will meet or exceed grade level standards. Our particular responsibility is to support those students who enter our system below those grade level standards.
Data regarding the current state of public education and student achievement: Students who enter at grade level stay there.
Despite 40+ years of support services (general education classroom interventions, remedial instruction, English language development instruction, special education, and extended learning services such as after school tutoring), students who enter below grade level make progress, but do not learn at a rate that will allow them to eventually meet or exceed grade level standards.
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Response to intervention means: Universal screening to establish entry data point Provision of intervention Accurate accounting of the intervention Progress monitoring to determine effectiveness of intervention Sufficient data points to establish trajectory
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Analysis: Why don’t our support services fulfill our mission? • Students enter needing support from their first day, and usually have multiple risk factors • We spend too much time sorting for eligibility, and provision of one support service excludes students from other support services • We intervene too late • Our interventions are not coordinated • General education and interventions are not coordinated
Analysis: Why don’t our support services fulfill our mission? • All levels of public education support the status quo: federal, state, district, and site practices are designed to support late, isolated intervention • We do not allocate resources effectively to provide effective support: – Staffing – Assessment materials and data analysis – Instructional materials and training for use
What can we do to change our practices? •Our districts are attempting to implement Response to Intervention as the model for change in practice. •We can be passive victims of typically flawed implementation, or we can actively advocate for effective change in practice.
What can we do to change our practices? • Actively advocating does not mean resisting change in our practice- our practices can and must change to become more effective. • Actively advocating means becoming knowledgeable regarding the law and best practice. • Federal law, Ed Code, and CDE regulations allow and encourage coordination and significant changes in practice.
The key elements of changing from our current support system to a coordinated support system:
Articulate the issues. It is essential that the key elements of this work are out in the open for all to see and hear. – All children will meet or exceed grade level standards – We are collectively responsible for getting all of them to grade level – Early intervention based on data must be implemented – Both coordination and service to non-identified students are legal – We all must change our practice. Current practice does not work
Address the difficult issues • There will always be a perception that this change requires additional money and staff. There is not additional money or staff. This change requires reallocating what we already have. Staff will have to change their practice. • There is also the perception that this change will make our work easier. It will not. It should make our work more effective, but it will remain difficult. The difficulty of change is added on top of the inherent difficulty of our work.
Analyze current data. Exactly which students are not currently meeting grade level standards? We must establish exactly which students are below grade level. Rank them relative to the grade level standard. – The ideal is three current data points at entry into our school system: CST, math/reading benchmark, Dibels, Gates-McGinitie, Curriculum-based, etc. – Whoops! The data system is inadequate • Use what you’ve got • Put a data system in place, with an emphasis on current data at the entry point to support early intervention (Kdg, middle school, high school)
Assemble the site and district teams. Create site and district teams to own and support the coordination work. – The site team should include the principal and any other site administration, general education representatives, and core support staff such as the Resource Specialist, reading teacher, English Language Learner coordinator, and after school director. Keep everyone involved and informed.
Assemble the site and district teams – Develop a system, schedule, and calendar for meeting. – Integrate existing teaming and coordination into the new system: the Student Study Team, 504 teams, IEP teams, grade level planning teams, leadership teams, district Program Improvement teams
District Issues • Comprehensive Plan. The superintendent, board, and district administrative staff must articulate a plan covering all aspects of coordinated support for below grade level students. Changing historical practices will spur resistance on every level, and will require district support. Who is responsible for this work at the district level? The district should work closely with the collective bargaining units.
District Issues • Departmental Coordination. Effective reform of special education cannot be done by special education acting independently. It must involve all district departments with any responsibility for support services for below grade level students. Business, Human Resources, Curriculum & Instruction, Data Management, Categorical Programs, English Language Development, and Extended Learning department heads must all participate. The Superintendent or designee must support this effort.
Understanding of the law • District office staff in all departments necessary to accomplish special education reform, county office staff, or even CDE staff does not necessarily actually understand law and regulation pertaining to the coordination of special education, Title I, English Language Development, or after school programs. Read the actual laws!
Design Instruction and Intervention. What does the data tell us about what the students need? What do we already have? What is missing that we need?
– Explicitly match student instructional needs to specific materials and instructional strategies
Design Instruction and Intervention – For this to work, all instruction for below grade level students must be coordinated. General education classroom instruction must be maintained for all below grade level students and complemented by instruction provided by support staff. The farther below grade level standard, the more intensive, coordinated the instruction that is needed by the student. It is perfectly legal and pedagogically essential that the neediest students will need instruction from several support programs. You will almost surely have some students who need effective classroom instruction, remedial reading instruction, English language development instruction, extended learning opportunities, and special education services.
Design Instruction and Intervention – Whoops! We don’t have adequate materials or training in the necessary instructional strategies. • What do we already have that we can use to start with? • Who has the materials, who knows how to use them? • Order what is needed. If the site and district maintain that there is no money for the materials, discuss priority needs and options for money. If we can’t afford everything at once, get the materials needed to support early intervention.
Design the schedule • This is probably and will always remain the most difficult part of the work. We will never have enough staff to serve all of the students below grade level. We will have to prioritize and make very difficult choices about who to serve and who can wait until the next round. It is critical to begin with the students who are farthest away from meeting or exceeding grade level standards and to begin with the youngest students in our system.
Design the schedule – Many members of our community will advocate for starting with the “bubble” kids. There is a great deal of pressure on our system to make quick improvements in test scores by moving students who score basic into proficient. Don’t do it! Targeting the bubble kids will not address the needs of the lowest kids. Targeting the lowest kids will address all students.
Design the schedule • They will also advocate for starting with what we already do, which is support the oldest students in our system. We cannot drop support for older students we are currently supporting, but we can fight to create early intervention groups.
Design the schedule • Group the students according to common instructional needs • Match the staff, materials, and instructional strategies to those groups • Negotiate a schedule • Include progress monitoring and set a review date for assessment, analysis and regrouping
Address the difficult issues • There isn’t enough time for collaboration • Traditionally isolated instructional programs have no experience with collaboration or coordinating their services • There is a huge risk of overwhelming support staff caseloads
Address the difficult issues • Some strategies that you try will fail. Address the failure, analyze the data, and come up with an alternative rather than abandoning the model. • Keep everyone informed at all times.
Reallocation of Resources • This work may require a coordinated look at current resource allocation and consideration of reallocation based on student need. Both IDEA and NCLB allow for coordinated funding of this work.
Staffing • Staffing. Districts struggling to control special education impact on the general fund make the mistake of attempting to reduce staffing allocations. It is necessary to conduct a program audit to assess actual need for services and current staffing levels. It is highly likely that excessive out-of-district placements, settlements, and legal costs are due to inadequate district staffing combined with ineffective district process and practice. Districts have historically attempted to control special education encroachment by reducing district staffing costs, especially Resource Specialists. I know of no examples of this approach being successful. Schools that have successfully implemented Response to Intervention-type approaches and reducing RSP caseloads have all too often been penalized by having their RS time reduced! Resource Specialists are the key to successful intervention at the school site level.
Caseloads • Under current law, caseload limitations only pertain to students identified for services under an IEP. This does not mean any service provider can serve 100 students. All students are not equal! Some require so much time that an overall caseload may be smaller. Some may have common instructional needs and allow grouping that may allow a service provider to effectively serve more non-identified students. This issue may or may not need to be addressed through collective bargaining, but it cannot be ignored.
Job descriptions • Do you have current job descriptions for staff whose work will be changed by these reforms? Do they need to be changed? • Pay attention to credentialing issues. Again, read the Ed Code carefully regarding credentialing and assignments.
Eligibility Criteria • Eligibility criteria and early intervention. All general education staff and staff in all support services is trained to wait until there is a clearly established discrepancy between expected and actual levels of achievement before intervening. A coordinated or Response to Intervention system of supporting below grade level students requires universal screening and immediate support based upon need. Re-training all staff to respond immediately to assessed need will require explicit attention from district staff.
Eligibility Criteria • Eligibility still matters, but is secondary to effective early intervention. The highest priority is designing coordinated intervention based upon the results of universal screening and progress monitoring for all students. The focus of Student Study Teams shifts from screening for referrals for assessment to determine eligibility, to problem-solving and designing coordinated intervention, and assessing the response to those interventions.
Eligibility Criteria • For some students, if the response does not demarcate a learning trajectory sufficient to eventually meet or exceed grade level standard, a referral for formal assessment will be necessary. School psychologists were trained in only one model for legal special education eligibility, the discrepancy model, and it does not include Response to Intervention. It will be essential that district administration work with the director of special education and all psychologists regarding eligibility criteria.
Eligibility Criteria • Response to Intervention requires multiple data points to establish the level of interventions provided, the response of the student to those interventions, and the trajectory of the student towards meeting or exceeding grade level standards. All staff in all support services is trained to wait until there is a clearly established discrepancy between expected and actual levels of achievement. Re-training all staff to respond immediately to assessed need will require explicit attention from district staff.
What Does RtI Look Like in Other States and Districts? • Each state and district looks different •Emphasis on reading •Emphasis on Explicit Direct Instruction •The many examples of successful practice include all key elements with careful attention to detail!!
Final Comments Regarding Special Education Reform, Coordination, and Response to Intervention There is a high likelihood that public education will not be successful in implementing the initiative defined as Response to Intervention in federal law. Response to Intervention does contain the key elements to reform our practice and allow us to fulfill our mission of bringing all students to meeting or exceeding grade level standards. There is a lot of bad inservice and bad practice out there under the
There is nothing sacred about the term, however. If it develops a negative connotation and interferes with the work of redesigning support services to effectively achieve our mandate of supporting all students to meet or exceed grade level standards, drop it. Do continue the work of coordinating early intervention for all below grade level students. It is legally and professionally possible to make those changes that we have always known need to be made, but thought were discouraged by law. You can successfully work with your sites and district staff to make the changes.