“Response to Intervention”—An Excuse to Deny Services to Students with Learning Disabilities?
By Nancy E. Bailey.
Response to Intervention (RTI), the program to identify children with learning disabilities early, was recently described by the Chalkbeat in Tennessee as having problems with implementation. In many places, like Tennessee, RTI has replaced —a model which has been used for years to identify students with learning disabilities, the “discrepancy” model.
The discrepancy model compares a student’s IQ test score (e.g. the WISC-IV) with achievement scores (e.g.,Woodcock-Johnson Achievement Test). A learning disability is thought to exist if the student’s IQ scores are at least two standard deviations (30 points) higher than scores on the achievement test. This indicates a significant discrepancy between the two tests. Consideration of the student’s work in the classroom is also given. All of this usually comes about when the teacher, and/or parent, observes a student experiencing difficulty in school and requests school psychological testing.
RTI uses what’s called a multi-tiered approach to identify students. All students are screened in a serious effort to keep students from special education classes. School districts might use different kinds of formats with RTI, and parents are supposed to be able to request a formal evaluation at any point in the program. Students remain in each tier for a specified amount of time.
Tier 1: Involves regular classroom instruction, repeated screening, and group interventions. Students who do well here go back to doing all regular classwork.
Tier 2: Students, who do not do well in Tier 1, get interventions and repeated screening with small group instruction. This is mostly in reading and math for younger children. Students still get regular class work along with the interventions.
Tier 3: Students get this instruction if they don’t do well in Tier 2. It is more individualized and if they don’t do well at this level they are referred to special education using the information gathered in Tiers 1, 2, 3.
RTI raises many concerns. Some parents worry that RTI winds up denying children with learning disabilities services. One fear is that some parents don’t think they can request an evaluation, or they are led to believe it isn’t necessary.
Two quotes the Chalkbeat provides, by Douglas Fuchs, a respected researcher from Vanderbilt, sum up the controversy surrounding RTI, as I see it.
RTI was introduced to the educational mainstream in 2004, when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act IDEA—a law meant to protect students with disabilities— was reauthorized. For the first time, RTI could be used to identify learning disabilities. Before that, students were often identified as having a learning disability if there was a large discrepancy between a child’s academic performance and his or her’s (sic) IQ, or “potential.”
First, was IDEA devised to protect students with disabilities? Or, were IDEA re-authorizations more about cutting costs to special education and creating one-size-fits-all schooling? Much of IDEA surrounds concerns that there is an “over-identification” of students for special education. Students in special education are said to cost twice as much as those not in special ed. By putting all students with special needs into the regular classroom (largely what IDEA is all about) special education services for children cost less.
Second, many would say the discrepancy model served students well. So, before foisting RTI on school districts, why weren’t these two methods compared more in serious randomized studies, with small groups in select schools? Such studies take time, but a review of the literature shows few studies before RTI was implemented. Like Common Core, it seems RTI was pushed into school districts before it was proven to be better than the discrepancy model.
Another quote the Chalkbeat uses, also by Fuchs, demonstrates quite clearly the effects of school reform on special education.
This [old] method [he is talking about the discrepancy model] of identifying learning disabilities has always had many critics, and one of the main concerns has “Response to Intervention”—An Excuse to Deny Services to Students with Learning Disabilities? - Living in Dialogue: