Dear
Colleagues,
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Introduction
During the past month or so, I have been
updating (and last week, just finished) my best-selling electronic monograph:
A
Multi-Tiered Service and Support Implementation Guidebook for Schools: Closing
the Achievement Gap
[CLICK HERE to Link to this Book]
While this monograph was first written
during the “No Child Left Behind” years, with additional years of research and
implementation (in well over a thousand schools across the country), and the
arrival of the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it
was time for a major overhaul.
Critically, the monograph is
written—literally—as a real implementation guide. Not only does it identify and help pragmatically
correct a number of critical flaws in the U.S. Department of Education’s MTSS
and (old) RtI frameworks, the Guidebook provides a step-by-step
flowchart on how to implement a proven, field-tested multi-tiered process for
academically struggling and/or socially, emotionally, or behaviorally challenging
students.
These MTSS/RtI flaws, collectively, have
resulted in delayed and/or incorrect services being “delivered” to students . .
. and failed service—that have both
exacerbated the original problems and increased student and staff resistance to
the “next” service to be tried.
We discussed many of these issue within
months of ESEA’s passage. See, for
example, our March 4, 2016 Blog:
The New ESEA/ESSA:
Discontinuing the U.S. Department of Education's School Turn-Around, and
Multi-tiered Academic (RtI) and Behavioral (PBIS) System of Support (MTSS)
Frameworks
But, more
importantly, we have talked about solutions. . . that are real,
defensible, and that result in more effective and successful student services
and success.
And some of these
solutions require educators to question and modify some critical assumptions.
Today, I want to
talk about two such assumptions:
- Assumption #1. That the “tiers” in a multi-tiered system of supports are real, tangible, and similar across districts and states.
- Assumption #2. That the “supports” in a multi-tiered system of supports are uniform.
As usual, today’s
Blog message was triggered by my work in the field. During a number of recent consultations, I
was challenged to clarify my comments regarding these two assumptions. As you will see below, one result was the
differentiation between “Services” and “Interventions.”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
An Introduction to
Multi-Tiered Services and ESEA
The goal of every
school across the country is to maximize the academic and social, emotional,
and behavioral progress and proficiency of every student. Ultimately, this translates into academic
independence and social, emotional, and behavioral self-management,
respectively (see the Full Blog message for definitions).
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All of this is
accomplished through (a) effective and differentiated classroom instruction,
complemented with (b) positive and successful classroom management, that (c) is
delivered by highly qualified teachers who have (d) administrators,
instructional support and related services staff, and other consultants
available to support classrooms, grade-level or teaching units, and other
school programs and processes. All of
this is intended to result in students who demonstrate age-appropriate (or
beyond) independent learning and behavioral self-management skills.
While an admirable
goal, the reality is that not all students are successful even when in
effective classrooms. Indeed, some
students come to the schoolhouse door at-risk for educational failure, while
others are struggling learners who are disengaged, unmotivated, unresponsive,
underperforming, or consistently unsuccessful.
These struggles occur academically and/or as social, emotional, or
behavioral challenges. For these
students, districts and schools are required to have multi-tiered services,
supports, strategies, programs, interventions, and systems to address their
individual academic or behavioral needs.
_ _ _ _ _
The Elementary and Secondary Education/Every Student
Succeeds Act and Multi-Tiered Services
The Elementary and
Secondary Education/Every Student Succeeds Act (ESEA/ESSA) was signed into law
by President Obama on December 10, 2015.
Most notably, the Law transfers much of the responsibility for
developing, implementing, and evaluating effective school and schooling
processes to state departments of education and school districts across the
country. It also includes a number of
specific provisions to help to ensure success for all students and schools.
Relative to
at-risk, disengaged, unmotivated, unresponsive, underperforming, or
consistently unsuccessful students, ESEA/ESSA defines and requires districts
and schools to establish a “multi-tiered system of supports” for specific
groups of students.
ESEA/ESSA’s
definition of a multi-tiered system of supports is as follows:
“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.”
While this definition
states that a district or school’s multi-tiered system is designed and
implemented for any student “in need,” ESEA/ESSA also specifically cites the
use of multi-tiered systems of support with the following students or
instructional areas: (a) students with
disabilities, including children with significant cognitive disabilities; (b)
English Language Learners; (c) children with developmental delays; and (d) in
the provision of literacy services.
_ _ _ _ _
Significantly:
- 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 term “response-to-intervention” never appeared in the federal special education Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and it did not appear in the previous ESEA—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).”
- IDEA, which predates ESEA/ESSA by over a decade, does not include the term “multi-tiered system of supports” in any way.
- Finally, the term “multi-tiered system of supports” appears only five times in the ESEA/ESSA, it always appears in lower case letters, and it never appears as a capital-letter acronym: MTSS.
Thus, unless
superseded by state law, ESEA/ESSA does not mandate the use of the (capital
letter) MTSS framework advocated by the U.S. Department of Education, its
Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), or any of the national Technical
Assistance Centers funded with federal money.
Instead, as noted
above, ESEA/ESSA encourages districts and schools to create multi-tiered
systems of supports that conform to the law but, more importantly, that respond
to local conditions: to the students,
staff, resources, school and schooling practices, and academic and social,
emotional, and behavioral outcomes that are needed.
NOTE WELL. Parenthetically, even if state law or state
department of education statute exceeded ESEA/ESSA and did require
OSEP’s MTSS framework (or any other approach to multi-tiered services),
districts can still request a waiver from these expectations by petitioning
their state department with a sound research-to-practice and student-focused
rationale.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The Tiers and the
Intensity of Services and Interventions
The U.S. Department
of Education—and its various federally-funded Technical Assistance
Centers—depict the multi-tiered framework as having side-by-side three-tiered
triangles representing the interface of a school’s attention to both academics and behavior.
The three tiers are
typically described as involving: Tier I
(Universal programming for All Students); Tier II (Selective or Group
programming for Some Students); and Tier III (Intensive or Individual
programming for Few Students).
Also associated
with the Tiers are percentages that reflect the assumption that schools will
have 80% of their students responding exclusively to Tier I approaches; 15% of
their students needing Tier II approaches; and 5% of their students needing
Tier III approaches.
Critically: There
is no research or support anywhere that has validated these percentages. . . or
even this framework of universal versus group versus individually-tiered
interventions.
In fact, many
years ago, a State Special Educator asked one of the (still) National PBIS
Technical Assistance Directors where the percentages came from. At a national conference, the answer was, “We
made them up.”
_ _ _ _ _
There is no validity, and no value,
in stating that a specific percentage of students should be distributed across
a school’s three tiers.
In fact, from a
strategic planning perspective, if schools prepared their budgets, organized
their staffing, and allocated their resources to this “prototype of
percentages,” many schools would be woefully unprepared to address the
critical academic and behavioral needs of all of its students.
And this, in fact,
is what is happening.
_ _ _ _ _
And so, in order
to begin a successful redesign:
Districts and schools need to (re-)conceptualize the tiers
in a multi-tiered system of supports . . .
To reflect the intensity of services,
supports, strategies, or interventions needed by one or more students.
We have advocated and
implemented this for years in schools, through our separate multi-tiered,
science-to-practice academic and social, emotional, and behavioral instruction to
intervention models:
- The Positive Academic Supports and Services (PASS) model
- The Positive Behavioral Support System/Social-Emotional Learning (PBSS/SEL) model
There is a detailed description of these
models and how they are embedded in a multi-tiered system of supports blueprint
in our new electronic monograph,
A
Multi-Tiered Service and Support Implementation Guidebook for Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap
[CLICK HERE to Link to this Book]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Why the “Old”
Tiers Need to be Retired
In many ways, other
than as a way to organize a district or school’s continuum of services and
supports, the tiers are not needed or helpful. Indeed, ESEA—as in the definition above—does
not require tiers (it talks about a “continuum”), and the law certainly does
not prescribe three (or any number of) tiers.
As noted earlier, if
they are present, the tiers should not reflect the percentage of students
receiving specific intensities or services, nor should they reflect how many
students are served (i.e., whole group, small group, or individual), the
delivery setting, or the expertise of the primary providers of those services.
[The full Blog discusses at least four critical reasons why
the “old” percentage-driven conceptualization of the tiers is flawed, and why it
needs to be retired.]
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for the full Blog message]
Here is the
first reason:
- Critically, one reason for organizing the tiers along a “continuum of services, supports, strategies, and interventions” is so that districts and schools can periodically evaluate their students and the multi-tiered intensity of their service-delivery needs.
At the very least, this should
occur in April or May so that districts and schools know how to effectively budget;
how to recruit, employ, and deploy the “right” professionals; and how to
purchase and/or distribute the “right” resources for the student services needed.
The “bottom line” is to ensure that
all students are receiving the services and supports they need to be academically
and behaviorally successful. Individual
student success is the primary criterion of multi-tiered system success.
Thus, it makes no sense for schools
to count up the number of students “receiving” Tier I, II, or III
services. Expecting a school to “meet”
the fictional 80% (Tier I), 15% (Tier II), and 5% (Tier III) “standard” is
chasing after a “normative illusion.” This is not the way to evaluate the
success of a multi-tiered system, and the percentages are not a goal
that schools should establish or aspire to.
_ _ _ _ _
Critically, we cannot
assume that the terms “Tier I, II, or III” reflect the same things across
schools, districts, or states. Nor—from a
school, district, or state perspective—is it relevant or does it matter.
All that matters
is student outcomes.
Thus, we strongly
recommend that schools, districts, and states discontinue the use of the
term “Tier” in their multi-tiered systems of support. If a three-tiered continuum is needed and
desired, we advocate these more functional descriptors:
- Preventative and Universal Instruction and Supports
- Strategic and Specialized Services and Interventions
- Intensive or Compensatory Services and Interventions
Finally, we want
to emphasize two additional things.
First, under
the “old” system, we never had “Tier I students,“ “Tier II students,” or “Tier
III students.”
Instead, we had
students who needed, for example, Tier II services or interventions for a
specific problem (e.g., reading) in a specific area (e.g., fluency) with a
specific intervention goal (e.g., to help the student read 100 words per minute
with fewer than 3 errors in a grade-level passage).
And yet, in some
schools, the services needed by some students became their label (as in, “I’ve
got a class of mostly Tier II students”).
By eliminating the
Tiered language, we should eliminate (or at least minimize) this dangerous
labeling practice. As we all know,
labels become expectations, expectations can impact instructional practices,
and lower expectations and instructional practices result in less prepared and proficient
students.
_ _ _ _ _
Second, special
education services for students with disabilities are not necessarily Tier
III—or even Tier II—services. The IEP of a student with a disability might
only consist of (a) assistive supports, and (b) consultation services to the
general education classroom teacher.
That is, some students with disabilities receive no direct special
education instruction.
Given the example above,
we would argue that the assistive supports and teacher consultation—if it was
available to or for any other student in the school—could easily be considered a
Universal service and support.
Thus, we need to be
careful about stereotyping and drawing generalized conclusions when students
with disabilities are concerned. Once
again, the issue is the service, support, strategy, or intervention needed. . .
not the presence of a disability, or even the presence of a pervasive disability
(e.g., a blind student or a student with cerebral palsy).
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The Differences Between
Services, Supports, and Interventions
I have already
written the words “services and supports” and “strategies and interventions”
innumerable times in this piece. This is
done consciously, because these elements differ, and too many educators
merge them together—to the detriment of our needy students.
I know this to be
true, because this issue emerges in virtually all of my on-site consultations
when I am helping schools and districts to (re-)design their multi-tiered
system of supports.
Functionally, when services
and supports are not discriminated from strategies and interventions, students
often do not receive what they need, and—many times—their academic struggles and/or
social, emotional, or behavioral challenges are not resolved.
[The full Blog message describes, in detail, the differences
between services and supports (with a Table of Examples), and strategies/interventions.]
[CLICK HERE
for the full Blog message]
By way of
Example:
- Tutoring is a service; the specific academic interventions used by a trained and skilled tutor is the intervention.
- Counseling or psychotherapy is a service; the therapy that a psychologist uses (e.g., cognitive-behavior therapy) is the intervention.
- A sensory “time-out” for a student experiencing trauma is a support; the strategies or therapies that a student received to eliminate the need for future time-outs is the intervention.
A district or
school’s (re-)designed multi-tiered systems of supports should include services,
supports, strategies, and interventions along its continuum. However, as emphasized above, services and
supports need to be discriminated from strategies and interventions.
In general,
services and support assist students and provide a vehicle for academic or
behavioral change. Strategies and
interventions accomplish the change.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
This Blog has overviewed
four inter-related topics:
- How the Elementary and Secondary Education Act flexibly defines a “multi-tiered system of supports”—encouraging districts and schools to create their own system to address their own student needs;
- What a model multi-tiered continuum could/should look like in the academic and social, emotional, behavioral areas;
- Why schools and districts need to reconceptualize their systems away from the invalid framework that relies on the percentages of students being served in each tier, and toward a continuum that looks at the intensity of the services, supports, strategies, and interventions needed; and
- How services and supports need to be discriminated from strategies and interventions so that students receive the approaches needed to change the areas of concern and to maximize the academic proficiency and independence, and their social, emotional, and behavioral self-management and competence.
_ _ _ _ _
As always, I look forward to your thoughts
and comments.
Please remember that we have just
published (last week) our completely revised electronic monograph:
A Multi-Tiered Service and Support
Implementation Guidebook for Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap
_ _ _ _ _
Note also that I am always available to
provide a free hour of telephone consultation to those who want to discuss
their student, staff, school, or district multi-tiered needs.
Feel free to contact me at any time if there
is anything that I can do to support your work. . . now, as you prepare for
next year, or as you redesign your multi-tiered system of supports.
Best,
Howie
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for the full Blog message]
