New initiatives and educational acronyms can trigger fear in some educators. However, when you take a deeper look at the initiatives, you can find more similarities than differences, just packaged in a different way. For example, the California Department of Education (CDE) has defined Multi-Tiered System
Prior to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004, the traditional method of deciding whether a struggling student received extra time and support through special education was with the discrepancy model. Under the discrepancy model, action would not take place until there was
Please be sure to read my previous blog post on the major findings from the new federal report, “Evaluation of Response to Intervention Practices for Elementary School Reading”. In response to this new report, I would like to provide the following recommendations to improve RtI processes
A 13-state evaluation report finds that Grade 1 through Grade 3 students receiving Tier II literacy interventions actually lose ground. Here are some reasons why. This past November (2015), a new federal report, Evaluation of Response to Intervention Practices for Elementary School Reading—commissioned by the U.S. Department of
Dr. Randy Pausch, in his landmark book The Last Lecture spoke of brick walls as indicators of how much we wanted something. If we see them as excuses to stop, we may not have really wanted to achieve the goal. I wonder if he also
Several years ago, Response to Intervention (RTI) was the hottest educational buzzword of the day. RTI trainings popped up all over the country, much attention was placed on implementation, schools set up RTI teams, and new books on the topic rolled off the press at
Contributed by Dr. Jessica Hannigan “I can’t handle this class.” “My administration does not support me.” “Nothing will work with these students.” “Their parents should be teaching them how to behave, not us.” “We are a zero tolerance school.” Sound familiar? After all, everyone gets frustrated now and then with students,