THEME
Culturally Responsive Response to Intervention (RTI)
UPDATE
TASH Proposal for Improving Federal Education Research
NOTICE
Toolkit for Teaching and Assessing Students with Disabilities
SPOTLIGHT
Spencer Foundation Grant for Inclusive Education
PEOPLE IN EDUCATION
Dr. Irving Hamer
RECOMMENDED READINGS
RTI and the Disproportionate Representation of Culturally Diverse Students in Special Education by the RTI Action Network
TOOLS YOU CAN USE
AIMSweb Progress Monitoring and Implementation Systems
National Center on RTI Library
RESEARCH BASED PRACTICE
Identifying and Implementing Educational Practices Supported by Rigorous Evidence: A User-Friendly Guide available from Education Publications
FEATURED NIUSI-LEADSCAPE PRINCIPAL WORK
Bernadette Kadel, Frank Elementary School, Tempe Elementary School District
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
Ignacio Estrada
FEATURED WEBSITE
Interventioncentral.org
DID YOU KNOW
Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CEIS)
UPCOMING EVENTS
School-wide Positive Behavior Support: Integrated Systems for ALL Students
Role of Youth in Making High Schools Inclusive
FOR FAMILIES
NASP RTI Primer for Parents
FOR STUDENTS
Let's Go Learn Website
Culturally Responsive Response to Intervention (RTI)
We've chosen the theme of Culturally Responsive Response to Intervention this month for at least two reasons. First, because the beginning of the school year brings such promise for renewed effort to improve the ways in which we organize our schools and practices so that each and every student from preschool through graduation has the opportunity to learn in curricula that are rich with multiple perspectives, offer original sources, full of activities that cross the boundaries between formal and informal learning designs, create bridges between lived experiences and the unknown, and provide tools for inquiry, knowledge building, and innovation. Second, because we honor the work of teachers as they strive to understand their students, create platforms for taking off into the curricula, and monitor student progress in ways that support ongoing adjustments to ensure that students are able to learn.
To do this work in communities where the student body is so diverse can create challenges but in schools where response to interventions models are practiced, teachers and other practitioners are collaborating in amazing ways to make the menu of learning options in the classroom as diverse as the student population. Response to intervention offers an important, evidence-based approach to doing this. The National Research Center on Learning Disabilities defines Responsiveness to Intervention (RTI) as the following:
RTI is an assessment and intervention process for systematically monitoring student progress and making decisions about the need for instructional modifications or increasingly intensified services using progress monitoring data. The following is the fundamental question of RTI procedures: Under what conditions will a student successfully demonstrate a response to the curriculum? Thus, interventions are selected and implemented under rigorous conditions to determine what will work for the student. (http://nrcld.org/rti_manual/pages/RTIManualIntroduction.pdf). RTI, like other instructional processes, is at its heart a cultural practice that must be conducted in ways that acknowledge the cultural, social, and linguistic resources that students and teachers bring to their learning.
As educators, we are committed to ensuring that all children learn and achieve to the best of their ability. Often, misunderstandings about the role of culture in behavior, communication, and learning lead to assumptions about children's abilities to be successful in school. An awareness and understanding of the role of culture in the classroom, and the different values and behaviors that may accompany culture can remove unintentional barriers to a child's success. The position of the Equity Alliance at ASU is that culturally responsive practices undergird RTI processes. When we use the term culturally responsive, we refer to a the ways in which curricula, learning designs, assessments, and student/teacher relationships are developed and maintained over time. Teachers become conscious of how they engage, reinforce, and extend student learning based on understanding how their students experience, engage, and absorb the world around them. Culturally responsive educators use their understanding of the experiences lived by students in the design of instruction and interventions (Boesch, 1996; Ladson-Billings, 1992).
Culturally responsive RTI processes ensure that all students are provided with high quality learning opportunities. These include curriculum, materials, and instruction that consider the strengths students of diverse backgrounds bring to schools, as well as their needs, consideration of strengths teachers bring, as well as what supports teachers need in order to teach all students. In other words, Culturally Responsive RTI processes must be based on students having received an adequate "opportunity to learn" (Klingner, 2006). Also, culture doesn't just shape what kids come to school being able to do, but also what teachers come to schools being able to do, what and how they teach, and how schools and systems assess student progress and make educational decisions. Culturally Responsive RTI processes create the social space to determine if and then make sure that every student has the opportunities to learn that s/he needs.
Please send us thematic ideas for up-coming issues of eQuiNews at niusileadscape@asu.edu. Our goal is to create a newsletter that can be an invaluable resource to you and your work.
Boesch, E. E. (1996). The seven flaws of cross-cultural psychology: The story of a conversion. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 3, 2-10.
Klingner, J. K. (2006). Response to Intervention Models with English Language Learners: Considerations and Future Directions. Educational Testing Service Accommodations Conference Savannah: GA
Ladson-Billings, G. (1992). Reading between the lines and beyond the pages: A culturally relevant approach to literacy teaching. Theory Into Practice, 31(4), 312-320.
TASH Proposal for Improving Federal Education Research
TASH, an international association in support of inclusive communities through research, education, and advocacy, recently proposed improvements for federal education research. In particular, TASH spoke of the need to include individuals with disabilities in the full process of conducting research. Some of their recommendations included:
- Developing a research agenda that addresses school and community supports for individuals with disabilities
- Ensuring that all federally-funded research takes into account how the practices will benefit all people, including those with significant support needs, making sure research focuses on adaptations and supports rather than "cures"
- Complete and provide funding for research which addresses the experiences of people who are culturally and linguistically diverse as well as those who have disabilities
- Create a foundation for research involving people with disabilities - one where individuals with disabilities can be actively involved in the process (i.e., as co-researchers)
To read more about TASH's recommendations for research, visit their website and click on the TASH Proposes Improvements to Federal Research document in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Toolkit for Teaching and Assessing Students with Disabilities
Student achievement is the basis for evaluating learning and learning difficulties. RTI provides a mechanism for identifying both students who are in need of adaptations and interventions in order to succeed and those students whose needs are more profound and need more intensive education services.
In order to determine whether either of these conditions exists, RTI calls for progress monitoring: tracking the progress of students though systematic data collection which is then graphed to show changes over time. Progress monitoring helps to identify those students who need additional supports to succeed, and provides a visual representation of the individual performance of students in the classroom over a period of time. Other facets of assessing students' academic achievement include classroom-based assessments (CBM), and school-wide and state-wide assessments, as well as evaluating instructional practices and environmental influences.
With all of these ideas in mind about gauging academic achievement, one must wonder exactly how it all fits together in a classroom. The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) created a Toolkit for Teaching and Assessing Students with Disabilities. This helpful website provides information regarding tracking progress, assessing, and teaching students with disabilities. It contains useful information for both teachers and students.
Spencer Foundation Grant for Inclusive Education
Alfredo J. Artiles and Elizabeth B. Kozleski have recently been awarded a small Spencer Grant for a project hosted at the Institute for Inclusive Education at Arizona State University to produce new knowledge and design an international study of equity issues in inclusive practices in countries from four continents. This project will produce a series of manuscripts identifying critical equity issues for inclusive education in each of the participating countries, as well as a culturally and historically situated paradigm of inclusive education.
Inclusive education models in countries with different historical commitment to inclusive practices are affected differently by economic opportunities, systems of stratification, policy climates, levels of investment in social policies, and educational expectations. The Institute will look at differences within countries that are considered first generation inclusive education nations (e.g., U.S., England, Germany) and second generation nations (e.g., India, Tanzania, South Africa) to examine how local educational systems' norms and regulations create disparate opportunities for groups to benefit from inclusive programs.
The project will deepen our understanding of how inclusive education is defined, studied and implemented, resulting in more equitable programs and opportunities for marginalized groups across the globe.
Throughout his extensive career in education, Dr. Hamer has been a leader and an innovator in transforming urban school systems so that all children can succeed. In his positions with the New York City Board of Education and as the Miami-Dade County Public Schools Deputy Superintendent, he developed innovative policies and programs to address the intractable problems that face underperforming schools.
Having grown up in Harlem, Hamer has a strong belief in the public school system, and has worked to improve public school systems in a variety of capacities: as a teacher, as a parent of children who attend public schools, as a school board member, and as an administrator. In all of these various roles, Dr. Hamer has consistently championed the interests of disenfranchised students, supporting bilingual programs for English language learners and identifying learning style differences between African-American and White students.
With an undergraduate degree in Sociology from Ottawa University, an M.Ed. in Administration and an Ed.D. in Learning Environment and Social Policy from Harvard University, Dr. Hamer spent three years as a Senior Research Affiliate at Yale University Institute for Social and Policy Studies. Beginning his teaching career in the New York City Public Schools, Dr. Hamer has held positions with the New York Urban League, The New York City School Board, the New York State Education Department, and Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Dr. Hamer recently started in his new position as Deputy Superintendent of Academic Operations, Technology and Innovation at Memphis City Schools.
RTI and the Disproportionate Representation of Culturally Diverse Students in Special Education by the RTI Action Network
In this feature, the RTI Action Network addresses the issue of the disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education-specifically, the impact that RTI models have on disproportionality. Response to Intervention (RTI) models can become a tool for tackling disproportionality in schools because of their focus on data-based decision-making. Rather than view disproportionality only in terms of the proportion of students in special education, the RTI Action Network proposes that researchers and educators look at educational outcomes. RTI models have the potential to help us tackle this problem by exposing struggling students to a variety of research-based interventions and evaluating academic achievement throughout the entire process.
RTI can be a beneficial tool for early identification and the prevention of ethnic/racial disproportionality in special education programs if implemented appropriately. Read RTI and the Disproportionate Representation of Culturally Diverse Students in Special Education for further information about how to utilize RTI interventions to improve education access and equity for all students.
AIMSweb Progress Monitoring and Implementation Systems
AIMSweb is a progress monitoring tool that can be used to assess students' academic achievement. Designed to work with RTI models of instruction, AIMSweb helps teachers, parents, and administrators to track and evaluate students' progress over time. The program uses curriculum-based measurements (CBM) whose use has been researched for nearly three decades. AIMSweb allows you to assess students and monitor their progress in universal screenings, monthly, and weekly for a closer examination of children who continue to struggle academically. Conducting frequent CBMs provides valuable information that affords you the ability to create individualized intervention plans for students who need more intensive educational support.
National Center on RTI Library
The National Center for RTI website contains a wealth of information regarding the practice and research of RTI models of instruction. Supplementing the contents on their website is a library full of briefs, fact sheets, articles, and numerous other types of sources all related to research on RTI composed by a variety of authors and organizations. Resources are catalogued by topic area such as "What is RTI?" and "Early Intervention Services" for ease of use.
Identifying and Implementing Educational Practices Supported by Rigorous Evidence: A User-Friendly Guide available from Education Publications
Among the many briefs offered by Education Publications is the one entitled, Identifying and Implementing Educational Practices Supported by Rigorous Evidence: A User-Friendly Guide. This publication guides instructors in making decisions regarding the appropriate selection of evidence-based practices. It is especially important for educators to implement practices which have been deemed successful through applied research. Educators searching for a way to identify and locate research-based practices in the classroom will find this publication helpful.
To order your FREE copy of this brief and to view the Education Publications website, click here: http://edpubs.ed.gov/default.aspx and paste the publication title into the Search window at the top of the screen.
FEATURED NIUSI-LEADSCAPE PRINCIPAL WORK
Bernadette Kadel, Frank Elementary School, Tempe Elementary School District
The faculty and staff at Frank School are utilizing a variety of best practices to improve outcomes for their students. Frank School is located in the town of Guadalupe, Arizona, a community of about 5,500 mostly Yaqui Indian and Latino residents, with Spanish spoken in up to 90% of the students' homes. Frank's students consistently enter kindergarten at the bottom skill level on DIBELS assessments in Initial Sound Fluency, Word Use Fluency, Phoneme Segmentation Fluency, and Nonsense Word Fluency. Frank teachers and staff work together to provide 90 minute literacy blocks every day that include small group activities and also provide a separate intervention block to target all students' needs. Through this commitment to using best practices, participating in ongoing reflection and engaging in dialogue about ways to improve, the staff at Frank have helped students to achieve higher assessment scores each year.
With a large English language learner population in an English-only state, Frank staff utilizes best practices for ELLs school-wide to provide a language-rich environment for all students. Frank's principal, Bernadette Kadel, provides ongoing professional learning in current, research-based instructional strategies. She has developed a strong, committed staff that seeks out new and effective practices and generalizes effective practices to benefit all students.
While many schools and districts are struggling to implement Response to Intervention programs, Bernadette Kadel and her staff are modeling the intent of RTI by seeking out and utilizing evidence-based practices to improve outcomes for the students of Frank Elementary School.
"If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn" - Ignacio Estrada
www.interventioncentral.org is a website that contains easy-to-use tools for creating your own curriculum-based measurement (CBM) probes to use in the classroom. The tools on the website allow you to create your own behavior management system, complete with a survey of reinforcers which allow you to utilize the student's interests, create individualized CBMs for math and reading, and plot progress on charts producing visually presented materials for parents and administrators to review easily. If your school has not adopted a specific CBM system and you would like to use weekly progress monitoring in your classroom to collect academic achievement information on your students in order to frame instruction to their needs, this website is a great resource.
Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CEIS)
Project Forum at National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) prepared a policy forum entitled, Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CEIS) based on conversations that took place at a CEIS conference in May of 2008. The purpose of this meeting was to generate a discussion about the implementation, needs for guidance, and best practices involved in early intervening in education. Educators and stakeholders participated to help define ideas and offer suggestions for the future.
School-wide Positive Behavior Support: Integrated Systems for ALL Students
The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) is sponsoring the National Forum for Implementers of School-wide Positive Behavior Support (PBS). The conference will be held on October 30-31, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Rosemont, Illinois. Sessions will include basic information about school-wide PBS, how to build fluency on specific skills, and how to implement a PBS program within a systemic change framework. In addition to these topics, participants will be exposed to success stories from schools that have effectively implemented school-wide PBS.
Role of Youth in Making High Schools Inclusive
On October 15, 2008 youth representatives along with the coordinator of Kids As Self Advocates (KASA), Naomi Ortiz, will partner up with Diana Autin from the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network (SPAN) to host a teleconference exposing the perspective of high school youth with disabilities on issues pertaining to inclusive special education programs. Participants will engage in a discussion about the benefits and challenges of creating inclusive high schools, learn current best practices regarding working with children with disabilities, and learn about using youth leadership as a valuable resource in implementing system wide change.
For more information, click on the event flyer or contact: diana.autin@spannj.org.
Buzz words are constantly present and changing in education. RTI is a topic that has received much attention in the past decade and it is becoming an important instructional model for assessing and attending to students' individual educational needs. Although RTI is discussed among educators and administrators, parents may not understand how it works or what it means for their child. To assist parents in understanding all that RTI has to offer, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) has prepared a concise, easy to read document which outlines what parents need to know along with what questions they can ask in order to get additional information. NASP's RTI Primer for Parents, includes a brief overview of the RTI model process, key terms and their definitions, and ways that parents can get involved in RTI. This is a great resource for parents who want to understand the RTI process and how it works.
In this month's For Students section, we have chosen to feature a web resource to assist teachers in guiding their instructional practice to the individual needs of each student. The "Student Support Services" section on the Let's Go Learn website is a place to gather information and resources for working with English language learners (ELLs), Adult learners, and students with special needs. Support comes in the form of academic products, assessment tools, trainings, and links to other useful sources of information including news articles and testimonials. Educators and parents looking for supplemental ways to boost academic achievement will find this website beneficial.
eQuiNews reflects the collaborative relationship between the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt), the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI), and NIUSI-LeadScape. With a new issue every month, eQuiNews can communicate with the broadest audiences and provide the most innovative, vital and current information on issues in education, school reform, cultural diversity, disproportionality, inclusive practices, and much more. eQuiNews will keep you informed of the work of these projects as well as other news and information in related fields.
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