Schools push for early help for students
article by Jillian Blacksmith-Reed | February 13, 2012
In an effort to ensure that education funding is spent more wisely, various school leaders in Minnesota are pushing for early one-on-one interventions with children who may be identified as having learning disorders. By using a “response to intervention” model in helping students learn, many feel that not only will it help all students in their achievement but also lower the number of students diagnosed with learning disabilities, thus lowering special education costs.
“I've seen it work,” Julie Olson, a former principal at Diamond Path who is now director of elementary education for Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan said to The St. Paul Pioneer Press. “I remember some kids who would have ended up with a special-education classification had it not been for the Reading Recovery program.”
In one school district, the St. Croix River Education District, the ‘response to intervention’ method has been implemented and has resulted in increased achievement and lowered learning disabilities in students.
Kim Gibbons, executive director at the district explained that the rate of students meeting achievement benchmarks has increased from 35 percent to 80 percent and the number of students identified with learning disabilities has been cut in half.
“I think in traditional models you have high rates of referral to special education because people perceived that as the only way to help kids who had problems,” Gibbons said to The Pioneer Press. “It is easy to do, but it is not cost-effective or right to say to a kid, ‘You have a learning disability,’ when it may have been they were not taught to read correctly.”
Early methods of intervention had students separated into ‘typical’ and ‘special’ groups early on with special education being a place rather than a service provided to the child. Often times a child would be placed in the special education class with no diagnosis other than learning at a different rate than other children. This left a lot of children often continuing to struggle, as schools placed more effort into identifying the problem rather than solving the problem.
At the same time educators often relied on ineffective IQ tests and assessments to identify learning disabilities that would often provide a misdiagnosis. This led to the rise of the ‘response to intervention’ method that provides personalized, in-class intervention prior to having the student receive special education services.
Typically ‘response to intervention’ methods work in three tiers:
• Tier 1 is essentially teaching as a teacher normally would by using the prepared curriculum as a benchmark. However, progress of the students is monitored closely to identify any students that may potentially need intervention.
• Tier 2 is used once a struggling student is identified. Often in Tier 2, the Problem-Solving Method as prescribed by the National Association of School Psychologists is used. Under the Problem-Solving Method, a teacher will first identify the problem, then analyze the problem, develop and implement an intervention, and then evaluate the intervention. Once the evaluation has been made, modifications can be made to tailor to the students needs.
• Tier 3 is used when the Problem-Solving Method does not work. It is in this tier that the student will be diagnosed with a learning disability and receive special education services.
These programs, while effective, can prove to be costly and time consuming. However, as more schools in Minnesota are implementing these intervention programs in their schools, they are seeing a return on their investment.
Because there are less students being referred to special education programs, the hope is that it will curtail some of the high costs that these programs can incur. In Minnesota, special education spending has steadily increased while overall education spending has not. Because of these successes, however, many are hopeful that this will change the way special education is handled.
“I think it has a potential to turn around how we do special education,” Mary Clarkson, director of special education for Anoka-Hennepin schools said The Pioneer Press. “I think its right for kids. I think we have the data, but it is still in the toddler stage.”
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