Response to Intervention: Derailed!
Response to Intervention (RtI) is assessment all children get, starting early, in order to determine if they need special assistance to address learning disabilities. It has been plugged as “research” or “scientifically-based” programming to identify problems in young children so they can avoid special education. Those descriptors were often used, sometimes unjustifiably so, with programs involving No Child Left Behind.
In 2004, IDEA quit making states use the discrepancy model described below. Instead, funding was provided to do RtI, even though the program was controversial and sometimes not given the appropriate resources or trained staff to accomplish the assessment and interventions.
Now, the National Center for Evaluation and Regional Assistance is reporting that in a study looking at RtI in schools that chose to do the program, for the last 3 or more years, first graders did worse than those who did not go through RtI. The study Response to Intervention: Derailed!: