Letter to the Editor

I believe that Response to Intervention (RTI) is a great idea for deciding who gets into special education. The problem is veteran teachers special education or otherwise have told me that it is not being used as it was meant to be. School psychologists have told me that they often encounter young special education teachers attempting to use RTI, but veteran teachers aren’t trained to put interventions in place or track the student’s progress.

RTI is meant to be a huge general education initiative, and the fact is that general education teachers are not trained in how to implement it. A lot of general educators don’t know that school psychologists, special education teachers, principal, social workers, and councilors are resources they could use to learn and help implement RTI. The idea behind RTI is that it would save money by lessoning the number of special education students being serviced. In reality RTI would cost us more money because we would be implementing something that nobody knows how to use. By simply adding classes for general education degrees and training programs for veteran teachers we could make RTI work. RTI is meant to be carried out in the general ED classroom in order to keep kids out of special education. Problem is special educators are the teachers that are being trained on the general education initiative.

If we really want to save money by keeping kids out of special education if they don’t need it, then we need to train the right people how to implement it. RTI could save money while limiting class sizes for special education. Students wouldn’t be getting services they don’t need along with the label of special ED student. Schools have the resources but don’t use them because some view change as bad. RTI would change the dynamics of the special education classroom by limiting the student put in them. That would give teachers more one on one time with students that need it. If RTI was actually used less students would get the label of special ED, and teachers would know what accommodations to give students instead of handing them off to special education. I think that if RTI does eventually become the norm for schools that education in all parties’ eyes would be made easier.