Monitoring Progress: Response to Intervention's Promise and Pitfalls

Response to Intervention (RTI) has become a buzzword in both general education and special education circles—yet understanding of the approach remains superficial. Enter this EdWeek special report, which serves as a solid primer on what RTI is, why it’s used, and what some of its common pitfalls are. As articulated in the series of articles, RTI is an instructional technique that educators use to assist students with academic or behavioral problems; it entails providing these students with tiered and increasingly intensive instruction to address problems in their infancy. RTI first appeared on the scene as a special education diagnostic tool, and is now utilized in the gen ed setting as a preventive measure for a host of potential student hang-ups, both academic and behavioral. Yet despite the popularity of RTI, obstacles remain: Few education schools adequately prepare teachers to effectively use RTI, and some parents have reported that RTI led to unnecessary delay in special education identification. Further, RTI’s fluidity can cause districts ire, as appropriately doling out funding for the effort (often between Title I and special education coffers) gets awkward. In the end, though, the greatest obstacle facing RTI is the dearth of research conducted on the topic. The report notes that, while RTI has gained many advocates, no rigorous study of the entire RTI model has ever been conducted. And though special education numbers have decreased as RTI has expanded its reach, a definitive link between the two has yet to be proven. Though many agree that an RTI-like approach is simply good teaching, we won’t know how good for some time yet.