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Federal “Response to Intervention” (RTI) Regulations Set to Reek Havoc Georgia Governor to Sign Special Needs Scholarship Act »
pete
Delaware’s Response to Intervention (RTI) proposal looks and smells like a case of misappropriation. Delaware parents, educators and union officials are in agreement on one thing: Delaware’s proposed Response to Intervention (RTI) is an unworkable, poorly designed proposal that will fail desperately to achieve the objective of the IDEA 2004 RTI regulations.
The federal regulations are clearly written and designed as an alternative way for states to help students with learning disabilities (LD) qualify for special services by early intervention. In the past, LD students had to fall so far behind their peers that they performed poorly on standardized intelligence tests before qualifying for special services.
Contrary to what Delaware officials would lead one to believe, IDEA 2004 RTI is by no means “another unfunded mandate.” In fact, the federal regulations allow 15% of the total IDEA funds to be appropriated for state RTI proposals, while allowing states broad flexibility in implementing proposals. Many states already have smoothly functioning RTI programs using far less than the allowed 15%.
We are forced to conclude that the education commissioner in Delaware is planning to use RTI as a vehicle for misappropriating special education funds into the general education budget. The Delaware proposal uses regular classroom teachers to implement a seemingly complex, 6-week tier based model. In fact, the proposal does not use any of its appropriated funding to assist the classroom teacher in implementing the plan. Teachers are to figure out on their own how to organize and run three separate, intensive math and reading groups and then identify students in each group who may have learning disabilities. We suspect that officials know what you, I and the teachers already know. This plan will be implemented on paper only.
Appropriated special education funds will be used to help pay general education teacher salaries. Just as now, students with learning disabilities will continue to fall farther behind their peers until their performance broadly affects their academic progress. RTI, which was designed to rescue learning disabled students, will be used to shortchange them.
Posted on: Monday, May 7, 2007 at 2:03 pm
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