Schoolwide Blog

What seems to have gotten lost in the development of RTI initiatives is that federal law indicates that RTI is to be a general education initiative. No roles for special education teachers or school psychologists are indicated in the law except at the very end when the RTI tiered approach to addressing the lagging achievement has failed to accelerate reading development of a very few kids.Thus, after a year or two of providing increasingly more expert and more intensive reading instruction, the general education community may refer the struggling readers for special education services. But largely, one would expect that schools would follow the process set forth in the law to create problem-solving teams of classroom teachers, reading specialists, and school administrators who would develop and deliver the RTI instructional services, basically separate from special education personnel. More...