Here's the evaluation he was commenting on: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20164000/A 13-state evaluation of "Response to Intervention" found it actually lowered reading achievement in 1st graders
Evaluation of Response to Intervention Practices for Elementary School Reading
Response to Intervention (RtI) is a framework for collecting and using data to match students to interventions of varying intensity. This study examines the implementation of RtI in Grade 1–3 reading in 13 states during the 2011–12 school year, focusing on 146 schools that were experienced with RtI. Full implementation of the RtI framework in Grade 1–3 reading was reported by 86 percent of the experienced schools. Fifty-five percent of these schools focused reading intervention services on Grade 1 students reading below grade level, while 45 percent of the schools also provided reading intervention services for Grade 1 students reading at or above grade level. Students who scored just below school-determined benchmarks on fall screening tests, and who were assigned to interventions for struggling readers, had lower spring reading scores in Grade 1 than students just above the threshold for intervention. In Grades 2 and 3, there were no statistically significant impacts of interventions for struggling readers on the spring reading scores of students just below the threshold for intervention.
This reminded me of a paper about RTI written by Prof. Schutz:
RTI: 'Response to Intervention', 'Really Terrible Instruction,' or 'Re-Tasking Intelligence'
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... id=1829302
The framework accepts at face value that the instruction is high quality in Tier 1, evidence-based in Tier 2, and more intense in Tier 3. The full burden for meeting the challenges the framework entails is with the student. If a student fails Tier 3, this is viewed as evidence the child has a learning disability and the child is relegated to Special Education. Few students who enter Special Education ever come out of it; they remain disabled for life.
Which brings me to this:The Response to Intervention framework was devised as an alternative to the discredited IQ/Achievement Discrepancy “Model” for the designation of “Learning Disability.” Schools and teachers find the newer “Model” attractive because it takes the “problem kids” out of mainstream instruction while sustaining present instructional practices and maintaining the turf of psychologists and “Special Education” specialists. Parents find it attractive because the children involved are receiving increased personal and specialized instructional attention. By the time a child has gone through Tier 3, the child, parents, and school personnel are thoroughly convinced that the child has a “disability.” The tragedy/travesty is that the “problem” the child had when first identified as “at risk” has morphed into a “really big problem”--for which the child bears the full responsibility.
R+P interventions- flogging a dead horse?
http://www.rrf.org.uk/messageforum/view ... f=1&t=6004