Call Your Members of Congress: The Tainting of RtI, PBIS, MTSS, and SEL
[CLICK HERE
for the full Blog message]
Dear
Colleagues,
Introduction
In Poker, a player
“doubles down” when they have a losing hand, but they want the other players to
think that it’s a winner. And so, they
double what was originally a losing bet (when they should be folding instead)
to make it appear that they are eminently confident that they have a
winner. If the bluff works, the other
players fold, and the winner collects the pot (usually without revealing the
bluff).
Recently, “doubling
down” has become popular in politics.
Indeed, some news channels have described our President as “doubling
down” when he originally makes an illogical, untenable, or fabricated
statement, then is confronted by the facts, and then reasserted his statement
more vociferously.
And finally,
sometimes doubling-down occurs in life.
For example, when people face a losing situation or take an unwise risk,
they may decide to put more energy, resources, or time into it in an effort to
turn “lemons into lemonade.”
This is what some
business start-ups do when they buy massive amounts of prime-time advertising
for a new product that just is not catching on.
Here, the product either “gets hot,” or the company goes out of
business.
_ _ _ _ _
When a private
company decides to double down, it is the essence of capitalism in a free
market economy. But when this scenario involves
the federal government and your tax dollars, there should be a pause for
reflection.
And if a federal
government agency doubles down on its own agenda, program, or
initiative—and the decision involves (or has the appearance of) a political
conflict of interest or fiduciary malfeasance, there should be moral, ethical,
and/or legal outrage.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The U.S.
Department of Education’s Near-Exclusive “Advocacy” of RtI, PBIS, and MTSS
In past Blogs, I
have presented the data and documentation to demonstrate that the U.S.
Department of Education (USDoE)—at the very least—has given its RtI, PBIS, and
MTSS frameworks preferential treatment, funding, and funding
opportunities.
It has done this,
often through its funded National Technical Assistance (TA) Centers, in ways
where
·
It has misrepresented the federal law;
·
It has recommended or used only these programs
in other federal grant programs—serving to extend these frameworks’
“legitimacy” and national reach;
·
By default, it has ignored, minimized, or failed
to similarly acknowledge other evidence-based or effective models or programs
that (often) report better results than their frameworks; and
·
It has done all of this as part of a conscious
agenda whose goal is to “brand” their frameworks in national prominence.
While, as above,
representing multiple conflicts of interest (or, at least, the appearance of
some), these actions began in 1997 with the first federal grant award to the
National PBIS TA Center and have continued since (see below).
Collectively. .
.
The lack of success of these frameworks
(see citations below) has cost districts and schools millions of hours
organizational and staff development time and resources, and our country and
districts millions of dollars of taxpayer funds. . . with no real or sustained
return on investment.
More important are the services, support,
programs, and interventions that academically struggling and behaviorally
challenged students have not received because of the misguided advocacy of
these frameworks.
_ _ _ _ _
In this Blog, I am
going to give examples (with citations to earlier Blogs) of the assertions
above.
But then, I am
going to reveal how the U.S. Department of Education (USDoE) doubles down on
these frameworks—especially when major research studies show them to be
ineffective. The USDoE does this by
funding new studies with your tax dollars. . . in an attempt to “prove” that
earlier research was incorrect, and that their frameworks are actually
beneficial.
_ _ _ _ _
Is the USDoE Misrepresenting Federal Law? MTSS, PBIS, and RtI
The current Elementary
and Secondary Education Act (ESEA/ESSA, 2015) includes the terms
“multi-tiered system of supports” (five times) and “positive behavioral
interventions and supports” (three times).
The first term does not appear in the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA, 2004), and the second term appears in IDEA six
times—although there are innumerable variations of this phrase sprinkled across
IDEA.
The term
“response-to-intervention” (i.e., RtI), or any of its derivatives, does
not appear in ESEA/ESSA. Similarly, by
way of history, the explicit term “response-to-intervention” never appeared in IDEA, nor did not
appear in the previous version of ESEA (the No Child Left Behind Act).
Indeed, the closest
that IDEA came to using the term “response-to-intervention” was in the section
on learning disabilities where it stated,
“In determining whether a child has a specific learning
disability, a local educational agency may use a process that determines if the
child responds to scientific, research-based intervention as a part of the
evaluation procedures described in paragraphs (2) and (3).”
The critical
issue here is this:
ESEA and IDEA both reference “multi-tiered system of supports” and “positive
behavioral interventions and supports” as generic terms, in lower case words,
and without acronyms. This means
that federal law does not require either the MTSS or the PBIS frameworks
advocated by the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) or its
tax-funded and related national TA centers.
And
yet for years, OSEP and the USDoE have confused the public by making it appear
that their upper-case frameworks are required by federal law. This is readily apparent on the PBIS and
the Law page on the National PBIS TA Center’s website (https://www.pbis.org/policy-and-pbis/pbis-and-the-law)
in an entry that has been present and virtually unchanged for over a
decade.
[CLICK HERE
for the full Blog message that provides quotes and a detailed analysis of this
webpage.]
Moving On: Beyond these publicly-posted
misrepresentations of federal law, I have attended close to one hundred PBIS
national and state presentations over the years, where PBIS national leaders
have even more directly stated that “Federal law requires the PBIS framework.”
_ _ _
_ _
For the past
fifteen years or more, OSEP staff have allowed this misinterpretation. I know this because I formally protested the
website entry above over fifteen years ago (a) to the Assistant Secretary
directing OSEP… and (b) in a hand-delivered letter that I personally
gave to Secretary Arne Duncan after a presentation in Little Rock, Arkansas.
This
upper-case/lower-case differentiation is not semantics, and this is not
an “innocent” oversight.
From my
perspective, this is a pure powerplay that is predicated on OSEP’s belief (and
experience) that most educators (a) trust the U.S. Department of Education,
assume that it acts in the best interests of all students, and believe that its
recommended practices are based on the most up-to-date research available; and
(b) think that the U.S. Department of Education and OSERS/OSEP have no reason
to promote (and fund) their own agenda.
Relative to MTSS,
the USDoE and OSEP have similarly confused the “multi-tiered systems of
support” language in ESEA with its own MTSS framework that they have funded and
developed through relevant national TA centers.
Once again, many unaware and trusting school practitioners have accepted
the incorrect assumption that ESEA requires the MTSS framework created by and
largely advocated through OSEP.
Relative to
other facets of RtI and MTSS, the USDoE and OSEP have been more
“subtle.” Here, they have largely worked
through each state’s department of education (which they evaluate on an annual
basis prior to releasing each year’s federal dollars to them). The “work” has largely focused on promoting
the RtI and now MTSS frameworks by providing “free” consultation from the
relevant National TA Centers and regional resource centers, and by
“encouraging” the use of federal funds for these frameworks.
In addition, many state
department of education colleagues across the country have privately shared
with me their fears that a rejection of the USDoE’s frameworks might result in
fewer federal funds, or more intensive USDoE “attention” during their annual
and triennial state education performance reviews.
_ _ _ _ _
Is the USDoE Inappropriately Recommending the Use of
Other Federal Funds for PBIS?
The USDoE has long
encouraged Chief State School Officers and other state governmental officials
to use different types federal funds and federally-funded programs to support
or implement OSEP’s (and other departments’) “home-grown” frameworks.
The most egregious
example here is the PBIS framework, where PBIS was explicitly recommended to
the nation’s Chief State School Officers in direct letters sent by U.S. Secretary
of Education Arne Duncan (a) for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
(ARRA) funding in February, 2009, and (b) to address the national epidemic of
seclusions and restraints— especially for students with disabilities (July 31,
2009).
[See details in the
“A Brief U.S. Department of Education/PBIS History” section of my March 2, 2019
Blog:
Congress Take Note: How to Really Address the School
Seclusion and Restraint Epidemic. The U.S. Department of Education Keeps
Pushing PBIS, but PBIS Ain’t Got Nothing to Give (Part I)
In addition to the
above, the PBIS framework was exclusively advocated (a) in the U.S. Department
of Education’s 2011-2014 and 2014-2018 Strategic Plans; (b) in the White
House’s Safe Schools brief released in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary
School massacre; and (c) as a required partner in the five-year federal School
Climate Transformation grants awarded to 71 school districts in 2014, and 25
state departments of education collectively in 2014 and 2018.
Relative to the
latter School Climate Transformation Grants, the Request for Proposals
not only expressed a preference for grantees to use the PBIS framework, but it
required grantees to budget for and attend a national PBIS conference each
October—for the five years of the grant.
Thus, all of the grantees—whether they are using the PBIS framework or
not—are required to support the National PBIS TA Center’s annual conference.
Once again, the
USDoE’s singular advocacy for the use and funding of the PBIS framework that
it initiated and has helped to develop since 1997, at least has the
appearance of a conflict of interest.
More functionally, however, the exclusive PBIS attention and promotion
has concurrently minimized national attention to other evidence-based or
effective multi-tiered schoolwide discipline models or programs, thereby
disadvantaging their use and growth.
This has been a
conscious agenda on the part of the USDoE and OSEP. Indeed, the OSEP staff overseeing the
national PBIS initiative have admitted to their goal of “branding PBIS.”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Who Testifies for the USDoE in Congress?
When there is a
national crisis, important pending legislation, or funding questions before it,
Congress typically holds hearings and invites the USDoE to recommend
speakers. Not surprisingly, the USDoE
most often invites directors from the relevant national TA centers that it
funds.
The problem here is
that, given the limited timeframe for most hearings, the committee or
subcommittee receives a potentially limited and biased view of the issues
at-hand. At the very least, they hear
what the USDoE wants them to hear, and they may not understand that there are
others who disagree with the USDoE’s views and who have significantly different
and defensible perspectives.
This occurred just
recently at a Congressional hearing on seclusions and restraints in our
nation’s schools.
Specifically, on
February 27, 2019, an education subcommittee of the House of Representatives
conducted a hearing where the most-recent number of seclusions and restraints
across the country was reported, possible alternative approaches were outlined,
and the role of the federal government in decreasing seclusions and restraints
was discussed.
During this
hearing, the U.S. Department of Education promoted George Sugai’s
testimony. Sugai has been the
Co-Director of the National Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports
(PBIS) Technical Assistance (TA) Center since its inception in 1997. Rather than talking about the root causes of
the seclusion and restraint dilemma in our schools, Sugai instead spent some of
his precious testimony time promoting his (and OSEP’s) PBIS framework.
_ _ _ _ _
Summary
As noted above, the
USDoE and OSEP have used their “bully pulpit” to dominate the agenda, practices,
and discussions in education for decades.
To a large degree, they have successfully controlled what educators
hear, the books that are published and that they read, and the professional
development activities that they are required or choose to attend.
By default, the
USDoE and OSEP’s promotion of the RtI, PBIS, and MTSS frameworks has resulted
in other evidence-based models or programs being ignored, minimized, or unable
to compete. This is especially
problematic given the studies over the years that have questioned the efficacy
especially of the RtI and PBIS frameworks.
And so, the story
continues.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
National Studies
Question the Validity of the RtI/MTSS and PBIS Frameworks
As they prepare to
meet the expectations of ESEA/ESSA, state departments of education and school
districts nationwide must recognize that a number of major research and
evaluation reports—some commissioned or conducted by the federal
government—have shown that the federal RtI/MTSS and PBIS frameworks has not
produced expected student outcomes.
Thus, as state departments of
education and districts rethink their multi-tiered systems of supports, they need
to recognize and correct the flaws that have undermined these earlier (and,
sometimes, current) RtI and MTSS approaches.
[CLICK
HERE to access the Project ACHIEVE website where you can receive our free
analysis, A Multi-Tiered Service & Support Implementation Blueprint for
Schools & Districts: Revisiting the Science to Improve the Practice]
_ _ _ _ _
The full Blog
message provides a detailed description and analyses of studies that question
the validity and utility of the USDoE’s frameworks in RtI/MTSS and PBIS.
In the area of
RtI, we describe and discuss the Balu, Zhu, Doolittle, Schiller, Jenkins,
and Gersten (2015) study. This study analyzed
the literacy progress of approximately 24,000 first through third grade
students in 13 states. Commissioned by
the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences and the
largest federal investigation of its kind, the authors statistically compared
146 schools that had been implementing key elements from the U.S. Department of
Education’s Response-to-Intervention (RtI) framework in literacy for at least
three years with 100 randomly-selected comparison schools in the same 13
states, who were not implementing RtI.
In the area of
PBIS, we describe and discuss a qualitative study commissioned by the
USDoE’s Institute of Education Science (IES) on a contract to a joint research
team from the University of South Carolina’s School Mental Health Team, Tanglewood
Research Inc., and Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International.
The goal of the
study was to evaluate—circa 2012-2013—the status of the science, practice, and
outcomes of school-wide positive behavioral support systems (SWPBS) across the
United States, and to design a comprehensive study to evaluate the efficacy of
these systems that would subsequently be funded. The study investigated four specific
approaches: PBIS, Safe and Civil
Schools, BEST, and my Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS) approach
through Project ACHIEVE.
Here, we
identify—from the results of the study—eleven questionable and/or inappropriate
practices within the PBIS framework and their student-centered implications.
[CLICK HERE
for the full Blog message]
_ _ _ _ _
Also, in the area
of PBIS, we describe and analyze the recent national data on the disproportionate
discipline referrals of students of color and students with disabilities, and
separately, (b) the recent national seclusion and restraint data for students
with disabilities—as well as the practical “usefulness” of a technical
assistance paper written by the National PBIS Technical Assistance Center on
this topic.
[CLICK HERE
for the full Blog message for detailed data and a comprehensive analysis of
both of these important areas.]
Our conclusions:
While clearly there
are intervening factors in these practice areas at the local and state levels, we
believe that the National PBIS Directors need to be held accountable for the poor
national results in both of these areas—providing a formal report and/or public
explanation.
The National PBIS
TA Center has been run by the same national directors out of the University of
Oregon (and, recently, additional partner universities) since 1997. The Center has received millions of federal
tax dollars to address the areas of school discipline, classroom management,
student self-management, and strategic/intensive interventions for students
demonstrating social, emotional, or behavioral challenges.
This means that the
Center has had more than 20 years to successfully address the areas noted
above. And yet, the data suggest that
they have been unsuccessful.
For example, we
pooled the national seclusions and restraint data for all students with
disabilities gathered from across the country from the 2013-2014 school year
(the last year where detailed state-by-state currently exists). This pool included those students receiving
services under both IDEA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
We then analyzed
the data to identify (a) the “Top Ten” states that were secluding or
restraining students with disabilities in sheer absolute numbers, and (b) the
“Top Ten” states that were secluding or restraining students with disabilities
per school in the state. While there are other ways to analyze these
data, we thought that these were sufficient to make our major points.
Below is a table with the results of our
analyses.
Critically, from a
PBIS perspective, it is interesting—in the Table above—to see Connecticut,
Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, and Oregon on the “Top Ten” lists. From my
(and other national leaders') perspective(s), these are states with the some of
the most well-established state PBIS networks in the country.
Indeed, the PBIS
National TA Center has been jointly housed for many years at the University of
Oregon and the University of Connecticut. And National PBIS leaders are
often drawn from the state PBIS centers in Illinois, Maryland, and
Michigan.
While, once again,
there certainly are state-specific issues always present, one would think that
these well-established PBIS state programs would be so well-established in the
schools in their respective states that these states would not be listed in the
Table above.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
How the USDoE is
Doubling Down on these Poor Results
In the Introduction
to this Blog, we discussed how “doubling down” occurs in many different
contexts. . . poker, politics, life, business, and within the U.S. Department
of Education (USDoE).
In business, when a
product or company is failing—that is, when it is not producing good quality
results (such that people don’t want to buy it or invest in it), the business
either folds . . . or it goes back to research and development, and it re-makes
itself.
In this Blog, we
have presented sound and objective data and results that tell us that the
USDoE’s RtI/MTSS and PBIS frameworks are not working for students, staff, and
schools (SEL will be discussed below).
But rather than
admitting that the frameworks are scientifically substandard and unviable, and
going back to “research and development,” the USDoE has doubled down. . .
multiple times . . . throwing more taxpayer money at more research in an
attempt to validate their flawed frameworks.
And in these acts
of doubling down (four times), the USDoE has demonstrated (at least) the
appearance of a conflict of interest, and (at least) some level of fiscal
irresponsibility. But no one has been
there to stop it.
Here are the
“Double Down Examples” described, with corroborating information and citations,
in the full Blog message.
[CLICK HERE
for the full Blog message]
Double Down #1:
The National RtI Study of Grade 1 to 3 Literacy (As Described Above)
When IDEA 2004
opened the Response-to-Intervention door, the USDoE, OSEP, and the Department’s
Institute of Education Sciences (IES) awarded
$14,204,339 to the New York City-based non-profit education
and social policy research organization, MDRC, from March 26, 2008
through March 25, 2014 to validate its own RtI framework.
As described in the
Blog, the framework actually produced negative results for academically
struggling readers from Grades 1 through 3.
This grant award
resulted in the Balu, Zhu, Doolittle, Schiller, Jenkins, & Gersten (2015)
study—the largest federal education study of its kind. . . a study that
investigated the literacy progress of approximately 24,000 first through third
grade students in 13 states.
_ _ _ _ _
Double Down #2: Impact Evaluation Training in
Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Reading (MTSS-R) in Early Elementary School
In response to the
disappointing Balu et al. (2015), the USDoE’s Institute of Education Sciences
(IES) released a Request for Proposals in the Spring/early Summer of 2018 for
the grant program titled above. The
grant was awarded in the late summer to the American Institutes for Research
(AIR), another large, non-profit educational research company based in
Washington, D.C.
This Multi-Tiered
Systems of Support for Reading (MTSS-R) grant in question here will run from
September, 2018 through August, 2024 to the tune of $17,281,100 !!!
Besides the
involvement of more taxpayer money, this AIR study is basically designed as an
attempt to revalidate the USDoE’s MTSS-B framework that is simply the updated,
but rebranded USDoE RtI framework (that did not produce positive results
as in Balu et al. above).
_ _ _ _ _
Double Down #3: USDoE/IES Study on the Efficacy of
PBIS
Earlier in the full
Blog, we describe the results of the qualitative study of the PBIS framework as
developed and implemented through the National PBIS TA Center. The circa 2012-2013 study, commissioned by
the USDoE’s Institute of Education Science (IES), was completed by a joint
research team from the University of South Carolina’s School Mental Health Team,
Tanglewood Research Inc., and Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International.
The study was never
formally published by the USDoE. Instead
(due to its negative/disappointing results, it was “hidden” as an Appendix to a
new RFP designed to address the “negative” results by investigating the
PBIS framework through more controlled research.
The Double Down
here is that, once again, the USDoE, OSEP, and the IES threw additional grant
money to fund a PBIS framework research study because its own evaluation of the
framework showed significant gaps in its processes. This grant was awarded jointly to MDRC
(of Balu et al., 2015 fame), and AIR (of MTSS-R fame) from November,
2013 through August, 2020 to the tune of $23,796,966 in taxpayer money!!!
And rather than
calling it a “PBIS” study, they once again rebranded PBIS—now calling it
the Multi-tiered Systems of Support for Behavior (MTSS-B).
_ _ _ _ _
But one more issue
occurred here.
This grant award
was designed to include a subgrant for the actual implementation of the
intended PBIS/MTSS-B study. This subgrant
was awarded to the Center for Social Behavior Support (CSBS), which is a
collaboration between The Illinois-Midwest PBIS Network at the School
Association for Special Education in DuPage, Illinois (SASED), and the PBIS
Regional Training and Technical Assistance Center at Sheppard Pratt, in
Maryland.
But employed
members of the Illinois-Midwest PBIS Network were on the Technical Working
Group that in February, 2013 designed the MTSS-Behavior study. . .
that then was awarded in September, 2014 to the Illinois-PBIS Network and
Maryland-PBIS.
From my
perspective, the involvement of these two individual in 2013 could have given
the Illinois-PBIS group an unfair competitive advantage in writing for
the later RFP.
A clear conflict of
interest is present here, and the Illinois-PBIS group should have been
disqualified from writing for (much less being awarded) the MTSS-B
subcontract/grant.
I personally filed
a complaint with the Inspector General’s Office within the U.S. Department of
Education on this issue.
My petition was
denied.
So. . . not only
did the USDoE double down by awarding a $23 million dollar grant to validate
its own PBIS (read MTSS-B) framework, but it allowed a subcontract within that
grant to be awarded improperly.
_ _ _ _ _
Double Down #4: Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)
Over the past year or two, it is nearly
impossible to avoid recognizing that social-emotional learning (SEL) has taken
over education.
Significantly, when you look at the national
media attention recently given to SEL versus PBIS, SEL wins hands down. SEL has garnered the “lion’s share” of the
attention. Indeed, it is dominating “the
market.”
And we are guessing that the USDoE is
concerned about this—given their advocacy and funding of PBIS/MTSS-B.
And if this is correct, then the following double-down
should be considered.
In May, 2018, the USDoE’s Office of
Elementary and Secondary Education initiated an RFP for the Center to
Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety.
Our read on the rationale behind this
USDoE grant is that “If you can’t beat ‘em, you join ‘em. . . so then you can beat 'em."
We believe that the USDoE was increasingly
concerned that SEL was going to (if it had not already succeeded in) eclipsing
PBIS/MTSS-B.
So, the USDoE created and funded this new
SEL Center in an attempt (a) to reclaim the bully pulpit in this area, and (b)
to re-establish its “voice” and influence in this area (over the independent
Collaborative for Academic, Social, Emotional Learning).
Thus, a fourth Double-Down example. . . . to
the tune of $5 million dollars over the next five years.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
The bottom line in all of this are
the students, staff, and schools that need effective, objective, and expert
science-to-practice services, supports, strategies, and interventions. . . and
who are not getting them because of political, financial, and personal agendas.
I don’t expect the USDoE to stop funding
professionals who have different ideas about how to best serve our students.
But I do expect the staff within the USDoE
to be fair about getting this done.
And I believe that the history, facts,
decisions, and actions that I have described above suggest (if not prove) that
fairness has been compromised—at some points in time—within the USDoE and its
different offices—including its own Office of the Inspector General.
What do you think?
[CLICK HERE
for the full Blog message]
_ _ _ _ _
As always, I look forward to your thoughts
and comments.
I am always available to provide a free hour
of telephone consultation if you want to discuss your student, school, or
district needs. Feel free to contact me
at any time if there is anything that I can do to support your work.
[CLICK HERE
for the full Blog message]
Best,
Howie
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