Focus on Your
Principles, Students, and Staff. . . and Verify the ESEA/ESSA “Guidance”
Advocated by Some National Groups
Introduction
Last week, I was testifying as an expert
witness in a Due Process Hearing in my state.
While I do this a lot, I am continually amazed when school districts do
not have (or do not use) a continuum of services, supports, strategies, and
interventions for students with significant academic or behavioral needs.
Oh. . . I know. . . everyone
has Tier I, Tier II, and Tier III services now-a-days. But honestly, of the hundreds of schools that
I work with each year, the vast majority have adopted approaches that:
* They do not understand and
cannot fully staff
* Violate assessment and
intervention science (and—sorry!!!— common sense)
* Are not implemented with the integrity
and/or intensity needed for student success
* Do not link instructional and
intervention strategies with the diagnostic assessments that determine
the underlying reasons for students’ problems
* Delay services to the
most-needy students—sometimes delivering them at the Tier III level. . . but
only after requiring these students to fail at Tier I and Tier II
_ _ _ _ _ _
Significantly, these schools are
not trying to be ineffective.
They simply believe that they
have no time to create their own approaches . . . and so, they adopt approaches
from “nationally-regarded” individuals and organizations whom they assume are
“the experts.”
Next, they don’t know what
they don’t know.
That is, they don’t have the
technical expertise to evaluate and realize that what some of “these experts”
recommend have not been field-tested, will not be effective, and do not make
sense—for students or staff.
And let’s remember—on the
issue of time:
Ultimately, schools spend more
time at the “back-end”—often over many years and grade levels—in (a)
re-evaluating and re-remediating students, and (b) having to use more resources
and specialists—when their multi-tier systems have failed because they did not
invest their research, planning, training, and effective implementation time on
the “front-end”.
And the most-tragic loss of
time and function occurs when persistent student failure results in (a)
students enrolling in other schools or dropping out; (b) parents publicly
disparaging their schools or taking them to court; and/or (c) schools being
labeled “failing schools”—resulting in state department of education
oversight, supervision, and management.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
What Does the Federal Law
Say?
The term “response-to-intervention”
(or any of its derivatives) do not
appear in the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act/Every
Student Succeeds Act (ESEA/ESSA).
Instead, ESEA/ESSA requires
schools and districts to develop a “multi-tier system of supports” . . .
and it defines this as
“a comprehensive continuum of evidence-based, systemic practices to support a
rapid response to students’ needs, with regular observation to facilitate
data-based instructional decision-making.”
Critically, the term “multi-tier
system of supports” appears only five times in the entire law. Moreover, the term is always written in
lower case—(except where the term is the title for a section of the law),
and the acronym “MTSS” (designating a particular framework or model of
multi-tier services) NEVER appears.
Right
from the beginning: This means that
the current or any forthcoming U.S. Department of Education MTSS framework
(usually disseminated through its Office of Special Education Programs; OSEP) is
not required by ESEA/ESSA—nor can any other national or state MTSS approach
be mandated unless it has been codified in law and statutory regulation.
Relatedly, any MTSS Guidance document
disseminated by the U.S. Department of Education or OSEP is just that: guidance and NOT regulation.
_
_ _ _ _
Moving on:
Relative to the five times the term appears
in the law, two appearances are in the definition as above. The other three citations appear in sections
where the law talks about the need for all districts receiving ESEA/ESSA
funds to:
* “(D)evelop programs and activities that
increase the ability of teachers to effectively teach children with
disabilities, including children with significant cognitive disabilities, and
English learners, which may include the use of multi-tier systems of support
and positive behavioral intervention and supports, so that such children with
disabilities and English learners can meet the challenging State academic
standards.”
* “Provid(e) for a multi-tier system of
supports for literacy services.”
* Offer professional development opportunities
that “are designed to give teachers of children with disabilities or children
with development delays, and other teachers and instructional staff, the
knowledge and skills to provide instruction and academic support services, to
those children, including positive behavioral interventions and supports,
multi-tier system of supports, and use of accommodations. . .”
Thus
. . . Nowhere in ESEA/ESSA does it specify:
* The
number of tiers needed in a multi-tier system;
* The
number of students to be targeted at each tier;
*
How students at different tiers should be grouped, and who should work with them
and where; and
*
What assessments should be done with students at different tiers, when they
should occur, and what decision rules should be used relative to moving
students up and down the multi-tier continuum.
Significantly, each school or district
in this country—that receives ESEA/ESSA and other federal funds—designs,
details, and implements its own
multi-tier system.
Moreover—according to the law, most schools
and districts will need to write the details of their multi-tier system into
their ESEA/ESSA “School-wide Program Plan”—particularly when they are using
ESEA/ESSA funds to implement school-wide programming.
Indeed, ESEA/ESSA states that each
school’s School-wide Program Plan:
* Needs to be developed during the first
year of the law’s enactment (although schools previously operating school-wide
programs can amend their existing plans)
* “Is
developed with the involvement of parents and other members of the community to be served and individuals
who will carry out such plan, including teachers,
principals, other
school leaders, paraprofessionals
present in the school, administrators, the (district), . . . and, if
appropriate, specialized instructional support personnel, technical assistance providers, school staff, (and) . .
. if the plan
relates to a secondary school,
students and other individuals determined by the school”
* Needs to be regularly monitored—relative to its implementation, and
revised (as needed) based “on student needs to ensure that
all students are provided
opportunities to meet the
challenging State academic standards”
* ‘‘Is based on a comprehensive needs
assessment of the entire school that takes into account information on the
academic achievement of children in relation to the challenging State academic
standards, particularly the needs of those children who are failing, or are
at-risk of failing, to meet the
challenging
State academic standards and any other factors as determined by the local
educational agency”
* Includes a description of “the strategies
that the school will be implementing to address school needs, including a
description of how such
strategies will. . . (a) use methods and instructional strategies that strengthen
the academic program in the school, increase the amount and quality of learning
time, and help provide an enriched and accelerated curriculum, which may
include programs, activities, and courses necessary to provide a well-rounded
education; and (b) address the needs of all children in the school. . . through
activities which may include counseling, school-based mental health programs,
specialized instructional support services, mentoring services, and other
strategies to improve students’ skills outside the academic subject areas . .
.”
* Includes the “implementation of a school-wide
tier model to prevent and address problem behavior, and early intervening
services, coordinated with similar activities and services carried out under the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. . .”
* Includes the provision of “professional
development and other activities for teachers, paraprofessionals, and other school
personnel to improve instruction and use of data from academic assessments, and
to recruit and
retain effective teachers, particularly in high need subjects. . . “
_
_ _ _ _
What
this means is: that schools and
districts need to complete a formal strategic planning and needs assessment
process—involving school and support staff, parents, and students—that
results in a multi-tier system of supports that targets (a) their own
students’ needs; (b) the local resources, strategies, and professional
development required to meet all of their students’ needs; including (c)
their academic and non-academic needs and outcomes.
Said a different way: Schools and
districts need to create a personalized system to fit their student goals
and needs, rather than adopt an external system that forces their
student goals and needs into THAT system.
_
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
An Example of What NOT to Do
As a school psychologist—and Past-President
of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)—I want to use my own
association as an example of how schools and school districts need to be careful when different
professionals on their own staff
talk about their profession’s national perspective of ESEA/ESSA.
Below is what NASP (on its website and in
other position papers and publications) tells its members to discuss at
their school and district level regarding ESEA/ESSA and Multi-Tiered
Systems of Support:
ESSA provides states and districts with great flexibility
to blend various funding streams (e.g., Title I, Title II, and Title IV) to
provide high-quality instruction, professional development, and comprehensive
learning supports based on the unique needs of the school community. States and
districts could also use these funds to implement multitiered systems of support
(MTSS). MTSS describes a framework for providing comprehensive systems of
differentiated supports. Data-driven decisions regarding instruction and
intervention are provided in increasing intensity (i.e., tiers) based on
student need. Tier 1, or universal supports, typically refers to services
available to all students (e.g., wellness/skills promotion and school-wide
programs). Tier 2 services (targeted) are available to some students identified
as needing some additional services or supports (e.g., small group counseling,
tutoring, targeted behavioral skills training). Tier 3 refers to more intensive
services for individuals or small groups and is usually limited to only 5–10%
of students (e.g., individualized instruction, intensive therapy, wraparound services).
Unfortunately—if a school psychologist (or school or district) never
read and/or understood ESEA/ESSA, they might believe that NASP has actually
quoted the law—relative to what it says about a multi-tier system of
support—accurately. NASP has not.
In fact, it is embarrassing to me as a Past-President and current member
of NASP that this has occurred . . . as the paragraph above either suggests
that NASP’s staff or leaders have not read the law, or that they are
consciously misrepresenting the law to advance their own, desired multi-tier
system beliefs and/or approaches.
In fact, you will notice that NASP’s “guidance” does exactly what I
told you (see above) the new
ESEA/ESSA law does not do.
Indeed, NASP intimates that the law requires or recommends that schools’
or districts’ multi-tier systems:
* Be organized in three tiers (ESEA/ESSA DOES NOT);
* Have a specific number or percentage of
students at the different tiers (ESEA/ESSA
DOES NOT); and
* Groups or organizes students (i.e., “all
students, some students, and individual students”) in specific ways at the
different tier levels (ESEA/ESSA DOES
NOT).
_ _ _ _
_
The “Take-Away” is: District and
school staff need to read and understand what ESEA/ESSA actually says,
requires, or recommends.
One way to do this is for relevant staff
to read and discuss the law together—for example, conducting a “Book Study”
with the law. Only in this way, can
schools and districts truly “reality check” the interpretations and suggestions
of staff, state, and national “experts” with the actual law.
I am not recommending that we distrust our
peers and professional groups. Instead,
I am recommending that we verify and validate their interpretations and
recommendations—and then do our own thinking.
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
Multi-Tiers Systems
Start with Implementation Principles
As schools and districts
integrate their personalized needs assessments, resource analyses, and student
assessment and outcome audits into their strategic planning and organizational
development processes (including those focused on professional development), it
is also important to review and learn from the RtI and multi-tier research and
practice from the past decade.
This is especially important as this
research and practice has generated many serious questions about the
RtI and multi-tier frameworks advocated through the U.S. Office of Special
Education Programs (OSEP) and its National Technical Assistance Centers and
lead researchers.
In 2012, I wrote a technical assistance
paper, National Concerns about RtI and PBIS: A Review of Policy and Practice
Recommendations Not Based on Research or Effective Practice.
In that paper, I summarized some
of the research and practice concerns inherent in the OSEP-driven RtI and MTSS
frameworks—concerns that centered on a wide variety of inappropriate, ineffective,
unproductive, and counter-productive practices.
Rather than focus on these
concerns here (you can read the TA paper for yourself), I would like to
recommend Ten Principles for Multi-Tier Practices that school and
districts can analyze, adapt (as desired), and adopt as the foundation to their
multi-tier systems.
If followed, these Principles
will help schools and districts to avoid concerning practices referenced above.
These Principles are:
Principle 1. Multiple gating procedures need to be used
during all academic or behavioral universal screening activities so that the
screening results are based on (a) reliable and valid data that (b) factor in
false-positive and false-negative student outcomes.
_
_ _ _ _
Principle 2. After including false-negative and
eliminating false-positive students, identified students receive additional
diagnostic or functional assessments to determine their strengths, weaknesses,
content and skill gaps, and the underlying reasons for those gaps.
When
screening procedures do not exist or are not accurate, Principles 5 and 6
should be followed with all students who are academically struggling in
the classroom or demonstrating social, emotional, or behavioral concerns in any
school setting.
_
_ _ _ _
When focusing—at the secondary level—on academic content, comprehension, and application skills, teachers need to be sure that students have mastered the foundational and prerequisite literacy, math, written expression, and oral expression skills needed to be successful.
_
_ _ _ _
Principle 4. All students should be taught—every
year—social, emotional, and behavioral skills as part of an explicit “Health,
Mental Health, and Wellness” preschool through high school curriculum. These skills should especially be applied to
students’ academic engagement, and their ability to work collaboratively in
cooperative and project-based learning groups.
_
_ _ _ _
Principle 5. Before conducting diagnostic or functional
assessments, comprehensive reviews of identified students’ cumulative and other
records/history are conducted, along with (a) student observations; (b)
interviews with parents/guardians and previous teachers/intervention
specialists; (c) assessments investigating the presence of medical, drug, or
other physiologically-based issues; and (d) evaluations of previous
interventions.
_
_ _ _ _
Principle 6. Diagnostic or functional assessments evaluate
students’ instructional settings. These
assessments evaluate the quality of past and present instruction, the integrity
of past and present curricula, and interventions that have already been
attempted. This helps determine whether
a student’s difficulties are due to teacher/instruction, curricular, or
student-specific factors (or a combination thereof).
_
_ _ _ _
Principle 7. Diagnostic or functional assessments to
determine why a student is not making progress or is exhibiting concerns
should occur prior to any student-directed academic or social,
emotional, or behavioral interventions.
These assessments should occur as soon as
academically struggling or behaviorally challenging students are identified
(i.e., during Tier 1).
_
_ _ _ _
Principle 8. Early intervention and early intervening
services should be provided as soon as needed by students. Tier III intensive services should be
provided as soon as needed by students.
Students should not have to receive or “fail” in Tier II services in
order to qualify for Tier III services.
Tier II and III services include strategic or intensive curricular or skill-targeted strategies or interventions, other services or support programs, student-tailored compensations (for academic problems), and crisis-management services (for social, emotional, or behavioral problems).
_
_ _ _ _
Principle 9. When (Tier I, II, or III) interventions do
not work, the diagnostic or functional assessment should be revisited, and it
should be determined if (a) the actual student problem was either accurately
identified or has changed; (b) the assessment results correctly determined the
underlying reasons for the problem; (c) the correct instructional or
intervention approaches were selected; (d) the correct instructional or
intervention approaches were implemented with integrity, and with the intensity
needed; and/or (e) the student needs additional or different services,
supports, strategies, or programs.
_
_ _ _ _
Principle 10. The “tiers” in a multi-tier system of
supports reflect the intensity of services, supports, strategies, or
programs needed by one or more students.
The tiers do not reflect the
percentage of students receiving specific intensities or services, nor do they
reflect the organization (i.e., small group or individual), the delivery
setting or place, or the expertise of the primary providers of those services.
Moreover, the services and supports in a
particular tier in a specific school or district are relative and dependent on
the available resources—including the number, skill, and expertise of the
existing core and support staff.
For example, in a rural, poor school
district, the absence of a Tier I social skills curriculum taught by the
classroom teachers for all students might result in a number of students with
social, emotional, and behavioral gaps that require the involvement of “Tier
III” community mental health referrals and staff- - because the district does
not have the mental health support staff to provide these services.
A larger school district that had a Tier I
primary prevention social skills curriculum would have fewer students with
social, emotional, and behavioral gaps; and these students would receive “Tier
II” supports from the counselors, school psychologists, and/or social workers
employed by the district.
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
ESEA/ESSA not only requires, but it gives
schools and districts the opportunity to review, revise, re-energize, and
re-establish effective, responsive, and successful multi-tier system of
supports that are personalized to all of their students, and that maximize
their students’ academic and social, emotional, and behavioral learning,
mastery, and proficiency.
Once again, ESEA/ESSA defines a
“multi-tier system of supports” as “a comprehensive continuum of
evidence-based, systemic practices to support a rapid response to students’
needs, with regular observation to facilitate data-based instructional
decision-making.”
Thus, the focus is on early assessment
and intervention, data-based decision-making that informs instruction,
and a continuum of practices where students immediately receive the
services, supports, strategies, or programs that they need without having
“to qualify” for those services by experiencing a forced “continuum of failure”.
I know that schools and districts can
successfully build this system, because I have worked with hundreds that
have. If schools and districts take the
“front-end” time that ESEA/ESSA gives them to prepare the right way, their
“back-end” student results will be significant, substantial, and systemic.
_ _ _ _
_
I applaud the local focus and
self-determination written into ESEA/ESSA, and am optimistic that schools and
districts can transform the law into effective and successful practice.
If there is anything that I can do to
facilitate your needs assessment, strategic planning, and personalized
implementation of ESEA/ESSA, please do not hesitate to contact me. The future of your students begins today.
Best,
Howie
