PJ Caposey is the Superintendent of Schools for Meridian CUSD 223 and Oregon CUSD 220. He is the former Illinois State Superintendent of the Year and a Runner-Up for the National Superintendent of the Year through the American Association of School Administrators. PJ is a best-selling author of ten books, a dynamic speaker, and a transformational leader and educator with an incredible track record of success.
Recently, I made a statement at a conference that sparked quite a bit of discussion: “RtI/MTSS is failing.” This led to some people I respect very much challenging my thoughts on this. My conclusion? The original statement is correct, but too shallow to be instructive.
The problem isn’t with Response to Intervention (RtI) or Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) itself but with how it’s being implemented. Renowned researchers Douglas and Lynn Fuchs have highlighted that while RtI has the potential to be highly effective, poor implementation has often led to disappointing results. This is a much cleaner, while less passionate, way of articulating my point.
As we prepare for the upcoming school year, it’s critical for administrators to revisit and refine their intervention systems to ensure they are genuinely supporting student success. After all, some estimates are that we spend a collective 5 billion dollars annually ($100 per student nationwide) on intervention in the United States with very little data to show that it is having any impact.
Here are five key considerations to guide this process.
- Focus on Accelerated Growth, Not Just Keeping Up
The primary goal of RtI should be to help students not only keep up with their peers but to catch up to grade-level expectations. This means that the interventions provided must lead to more than just typical growth—they should result in accelerated progress that closes the achievement gap.
If your current system is merely helping students maintain their current pace without making significant strides, it’s time to reassess the intensity and effectiveness of your interventions. The aim should be to move students out of intervention programs by addressing their needs thoroughly and swiftly, not to keep them in a cycle of perpetual remediation.
Intervention purgatory is a real thing. If that is the experience you are creating for your students, please evaluate your process.
- Ensure Expertise in Delivering Interventions
One of the most critical mistakes schools can make is assigning the most struggling students to the least experienced staff members. This sounds like an outlandish statement – but is actually the reality in many schools.
Interventions should begin with differentiated instruction from classroom teachers, but when more specialized help is needed, it should come from highly trained professionals who are experts in addressing specific deficits. Unfortunately, it’s common for students to be handed off to paraprofessionals or aides who may not have the necessary skills to deliver the intervention effectively.
This approach often undermines the effectiveness of RtI, as it’s the quality of the intervention that determines whether students will make the gains needed to succeed. Plus, it simply does not make sense to have our most needy students working primarily with our less skilled educators.
- Prioritize Core Skill Development
At the foundational levels, ensuring students achieve proficiency in reading and mathematics must be a top priority. Effective schools find creative ways to carve out dedicated time in the schedule for intervention, recognizing that these core areas are essential for future academic success.
However, in many schools, time for intervention is squeezed into the schedule in ways that compromise its effectiveness. It is VERY common for schools to place an intervention block into place (let’s say 30 minutes) and implement an intervention that explicitly says it takes 40 minutes to work. We are simply not holding ourselves accountable.
Administrators need to ensure that remediation time is prioritized, even if it means temporarily reducing focus on less critical subjects. This is especially important when students are significantly behind and need intensive support to catch up.
- Adopt a Data-Driven Approach to Intervention
To be effective, interventions must be targeted and systematic. This begins with using data from universal screeners and teacher assessments to identify specific areas where students need support.
The interventions chosen should directly address these needs, and their effectiveness should be regularly monitored. However, in many schools, a one-size-fits-all approach is taken, where interventions are applied broadly rather than tailored to individual student deficits. Whether a student is lacking in skill ‘A’ or skill ‘Z’ they get the same intervention without much thought or consideration for their varying needs.
This lack of precision often results in interventions that are not as effective as they could be. Schools must ensure that interventions are carefully matched to student needs and adjusted as necessary based on ongoing data.
- Maintain Shared Responsibility for Student Outcomes
A significant issue in many schools is the loss of ownership over a student’s progress once they enter the intervention system. Classroom teachers may assume that once a student is in RtI/MTSS, they are no longer responsible for that student’s progress, which can lead to a lack of continuity and accountability.
To avoid this, there should be shared responsibility between classroom teachers and interventionists. This cannot just be lip service, either. Both should be actively involved in monitoring the student’s progress and adjusting interventions as needed. Without this collaborative approach, students can easily fall through the cracks, with no one truly accountable for their success.
Conclusion
As we approach the new school year, it’s imperative that we take a close look at our intervention systems. If your RtI or MTSS isn’t delivering the results you expect, which it likely is not per the national data, it’s likely due to issues in implementation rather than the framework itself.
The potential of RtI/MTSS to drive significant academic improvement is immense, but it requires careful, thoughtful execution. By focusing on these five key areas—accelerated growth, expert delivery, prioritizing core skills, data-driven intervention, and shared responsibility—we can ensure that our intervention systems are not only effective but transformative for our students.
Let’s commit to making the necessary adjustments to fully realize the promise of RtI and MTSS in our schools.