New Strategy to Keep Kids Out of Special Ed
"Response to intervention" aims to determine students' weaknesses before they fall behind
Supporters insist teachers just need time to adjust. "It's an enculturation process, a change of philosophy in teaching," says Sailor, adding that he's watched teachers with little confidence in RTI embrace the method once they master it. That process is underway at Newmarket, where the number of students referred to special education programs dropped from 24 students to 3. Since 2006, students identified with learning disorders also dipped from 19 percent to 13 percent, which is just below the national average of 13.5. In addition to training its teachers, the school provides special educators for each grade level to work with students and assist with the monitoring. Russell says the extra help has eased Newmarket into RTI successfully. "When one teacher tries to do it all, that's when it gets overwhelming," she says. Last spring, Newmarket teachers were encouraged to insert creative elements back into their lesson plans. "No program does everything 100 percent," Barton adds. "Now we've seen the areas that we need to tweak a little bit more; we've already started planning for next year."
Reader Comments
To the special ed. teacher,
You write, "I am no fan of NCLB because it is penalizing students and schools when a student is unable to work at grade level. I am a special ed teacher and ...but when a student is in 5th grade and reads on a 3rd grade level, there is very little chance that they are going to pass a 5th grade test. A student in special ed should be expected to make progress every year but they may never perform on grade level".
I think you are forgetting key facts in your response.
1) It is the system that requires the student to be two grade levels behind before they are provided with "specialized instruction".
2) The system also relies on identification methods which have been proven invalid, ie the discrepency model.
3)The 5th gr. test, to which you refer, is the state test. A test that ALL children are expected to score proficiently on. The state test reflects what we EXPECT EVERY student to reach and is not a rigourous test designed to reflect academic standards we aspire every student to reach.
4) Unless the school district can demonstrate these students cannot attain grade level proficiency (cognitively impaired), than schools should be penalized. They have failed to teach them?
Parents shouldn't have to take school districts to due process to prove denial of FAPE...if the child failed to pass the state test, that is proof. It is a joke that a student cannot be eligible for SE if they have not had adaquate instruction. If the instruction was adaquate, the SD's general ed. proficiency rate would be 100% (unless some SE student's were unidentified or some GE students were cognitively impaired).
Kids with Learing Disabilities
In The HUDS Healdsburg Ca, they do test the kids they do fulinclution but at a 95% failling the kids then they reach a point that they ship the kids off to another school were they have a General special day clas rangeing in age from k- 12 with all kind of disablities, and have them just learn what the want even if it just drawing no other
RTI Unintended consequence
RTI can be powerful, but it replicates what solid teachers and schools already do--look for multiple ways of intervening and reteaching as soon as gaps become apparent. The structure is also helpful to schools where the process has not been formal. One "negative" unintended consequence relates to staffing. Let's say a school has (for example) 5 federally funded special education teachers who can work with teachers to develop appropriate interventions for these struggling students. The process works, and RTI provides what kids need without eventually labelling them "special education" students. Over time, the percentage of students classified as "special education" students diminishes, which is positive. However, in that event the federal funding also diminishes, meaning another budgetary area has to continue to pay for those interventionists. Districts must be financially prepared to replace those federally-funded positions with locally- or state-funded positions, or else the depth and richness of intervention available suffers, leading to a cycle in which students get intense services so student needs are met and special education numbers decrease, leading to lack of funding, loss of intervention positions and diminishing resources, leading to student needs being unmet and increasing numbers of special education-identified students.....
Districts would do well to think long-term and beef up intervention at the campus level that is not threatened by being based in federal special education funding; OR, the feds need to think long-term by providing additional portions of special education funding that are tied not to special-education identifications, but numbers of students addressed through RTI who never need the "special education" label.
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