Response to Proven Instruction (RTPI)

Response to Intervention (RTI) is one of those great policy ideas caring policymakers always come up with that is carefully crafted and enthusiastically announced, then inconsistently implemented, evaluated at great cost, and found to have minimal impacts, if any.   In the case of RTI, the policy is genuinely sensible, but the 2015 MDRC evaluation (Balu et al., 2015) found that the implementation was poor and outcomes were nil, at least as measured in a much-criticized regression discontinuity design (see Fuchs & Fuchs, 2017).  An improvement on RTI, multi-tier systems of support (MTSS), adds in some good ideas, but I don’t think it will be enough.

The problem, I think, relates to something I wrote about at the time the MDRC study appeared. In fact, I gave the phenomenon a name: Bob’s Law, which states that any policy or intervention that is not well defined will not be well implemented and therefore will not work, no matter how sensible it may be. In the case of RTI/MTSS, everyone has a pretty good idea what “tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3” are in concept, but no one knows what they are actually composed of. So each district and school and teacher makes up their own strategies to do general teaching followed by remediation if needed, followed by intensive services if necessary. The problem is that since the actual programs provided in each tier are not specified, everyone will do pretty much what they would have done if RTI had not existed. And guess what?  If both RTI and non-RTI teachers are drawing from the same universally accepted basket of teaching methods, there is no reason to believe that outcomes will be better than ordinary practice if the RTI group is doing more or less the same thing as the non-RTI group.  This is not to say that standard methods are deficient, but why would we expect outcomes to differ if practices don’t?

Response to Proven Instruction (RTPI).

I recently wrote an article proposing a new approach to RTI/MTSS (Slavin, Inns, Pellegrini, & Lake, 2018).  The idea is simple. Why not insist that struggling learners receive tier 1, tier 2, and (if necessary) tier 3 services, each of which is proven to work in rigorous research?  In the article I listed numerous tier 2 and tier 3 services for reading and math that have all been successfully evaluated, with significant outcomes and effect sizes in excess of +0.20.  Every one of these programs involved tutoring, one to one or one to small group, by teachers or paraprofessionals. I also listed tier 1 services found to be very effective for struggling learners.  All of these programs are described at www.evidenceforessa.org.

If there are so many effective approaches for struggling learners, these should form the core of RTI/MTSS services. I would argue that tier 1 should be composed of proven whole class or whole school programs; tier 2, one-to-small group tutoring by well-qualified paraprofessionals using proven approaches; and tier 3, one-to-one tutoring by paraprofessionals or teachers using proven approaches (see Figure 1).

The result would have to be substantial improvements in the achievement of struggling learners, and reductions in special education and retentions.  These outcomes are assured, as long as implementation is strong, because the programs themselves are proven to work.  Over time, better and more cost-effective programs would be sure to appear, but we could surely do a lot better today with the programs we have now.

Millions of children live in the cruel borderlands between low reading groups and special education. These students are perfectly normal, except from 9:00 to 3:00 on school days. They start school with enthusiasm, but then slide over the years into failure, despair, and then dropout or delinquency.  If we have proven approaches and can use them in a coherent system to ensure success for all of these children, why would we not use them?

Children have a right to have every chance to succeed.  We have a moral imperative to see that they receive what they need, whatever it takes.

References

Balu, R., Zhu, P., Doolittle, F., Schiller, E., Jenkins, J., & Gersten, R. (2015). Evaluation of response to intervention practices for elementary school reading. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute for Education Sciences, NCEE 2016-4000.

Fuchs, D., & Fuchs, L.S. (2017). Critique of the National Evaluation of Response to Intervention: A case for simpler frameworks. Exceptional Children, 83 (3), 1-14.

Slavin, R.E., Inns, A., Pellegrini, M., & Lake, C. (2018). Response to proven instruction (RTPI): Enabling struggling learners. Manuscript submitted for publication.

This blog was developed with support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation.

Beyond the Spaghetti Bridge: Why Response to Intervention is Not Enough

I know an engineer at Johns Hopkins University who invented the Spaghetti Bridge Challenge. Teams of students are given dry, uncooked spaghetti and glue, and are challenged to build a bridge over a 500-millimeter gap. The bridge that can support the most weight wins.

Spaghetti Bridge tournaments are now held all over the world, and they are wonderful for building interest in engineering. But I don’t think any engineer would actually build a real bridge based on a winning spaghetti bridge prototype. Much as spaghetti bridges do resemble the designs of real bridges, there are many more factors a real engineer has to take into account: Weight of materials, tensile strength, flexibility (in case of high winds or earthquakes), durability, and so on.

In educational innovation and reform, we have lots of great ideas that resemble spaghetti bridges. That’s because they would probably work great if only their components were ideal. An example like this is Response to Intervention (RTI), or its latest version, Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS). Both RTI and MTSS start with a terrific idea: Instead of just testing struggling students to decide whether or not to assign them to special education, provide them with high-quality instruction (Tier 1), supplemented by modest assistance if that is not sufficient (Tier 2), supplemented by intensive instruction if Tier 2 is not sufficient (Tier 3). In law, or at least in theory, struggling readers must have had a chance to succeed in high-quality Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 instruction before they can be assigned to special education.

The problem is that there is no way to ensure that struggling students truly received high-quality instruction at each tier level. Teachers do their best, but it is difficult to make up effective approaches from scratch. MTSS or RTI is a great idea, but their success depends on the effectiveness of whatever struggling students receive as Tier 1, 2, and 3 instruction.

This is where spaghetti bridges come in. Many bridge designs can work in theory (or in spaghetti), but whether or not a bridge really works in the real world depends on how it is made, and with what materials in light of the demands that will be placed on it.

The best way to ensure that all components of RTI or MTSS policy are likely to be effective is to select approaches for each tier that have themselves been proven to work. Fortunately, there is now a great deal of research establishing the effectiveness of programs, proven effective for struggling students that use whole-school or whole-class methods (Tier 1), one-to-small group tutoring (Tier 2), or one-to-one tutoring (Tier 3). Many of these tutoring models are particularly cost-effective because they successfully provide struggling readers with tutoring from well-qualified paraprofessionals, usually ones with bachelor’s degrees but not teaching certificates. Research on both reading and math tutoring has clearly established that such paraprofessional tutors, using structured models, have tutees who gain at least as much as do tutors who are certified teachers. This is important not only because paraprofessionals cost about half as much as teachers, but also because there are chronic teacher shortages in high-poverty areas, such as inner-city and rural locations, so certified teacher tutors may not be available at any cost.

If schools choose proven components for their MTSS/RTI models, and implement them with thought and care, they are sure to see enhanced outcomes for their struggling students. The concept of MTSS/RTI is sound, and the components are proven. How could the outcomes be less than stellar? And in addition to improved achievement for vulnerable learners, hiring many paraprofessionals to serve as tutors in disadvantaged schools could enable schools to attract and identify capable, caring young people with bachelor’s degrees to offer accelerated certification, enriching the local teaching force.

With a spaghetti bridge, a good design is necessary but not sufficient. The components of that design, its ingredients, and its implementation, determine whether the bridge stands or falls in practice. So it is with MTSS and RTI. An approach based on strong evidence of effectiveness is essential to enable these good designs achieve their goals.

Photo credit: CSUF Photos (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0), via flickr

This blog was developed with support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation.