TEXT

    RTI was introduced to the educational mainstream in 2004, when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act IDEA—a law meant to protect students with disabilities— was reauthorized. For the first time, RTI could be used to identify learning disabilities. Before that, students were often identified as having a learning disability if there was a large discrepancy between a child’s academic performance and his or her’s (sic) IQ, or “potential.”

First, was IDEA devised to protect students with disabilities? Or, were IDEA re-authorizations more about cutting costs to special education and creating one-size-fits-all schooling? Much of IDEA surrounds concerns that there is an “over-identification” of students for special education. Students in special education are said to cost twice as much as those not in special ed. By putting all students with special needs into the regular classroom (largely what IDEA is all about) special education services for children cost less.

Second, many would say the discrepancy model served students well. So, before foisting RTI on school districts, why weren’t these two methods compared more in serious randomized studies, with small groups in select schools? Such studies take time, but a review of the literature shows few studies before RTI was implemented. Like Common Core, it seems RTI was pushed into school districts before it was proven to be better than the discrepancy model.

Another quote the Chalkbeat uses, also by Fuchs, demonstrates quite clearly the effects of school reform on special education.

    This [old] method [he is talking about the discrepancy model] of identifying learning disabilities has always had many critics, and one of the main concerns has always been that there’s been a presumption that the children […] were receiving good academic instruction, when in fact they were often […] doing poorly because of poor instruction.

http://www.livingindialogue.com/response-intervention-excuse-deny-services-students-learning-disabilities/

 VIDEO