Essential Features of Tier Two
There appear to be differing opinions about what should happen during the second tier of the three-tier model. There is consensus that this stage is designated for students who fail to make acceptable progress in Tier One. It is notable that, to date, Tier One interventions have not been in place in many of the large-scale programs that have provided these secondary (Tier Two) interventions. It is likely that assisting more students in the general education program in Tier One will have impact on how Tier Two operates. While there is not yet a research base on how these two processes would interact, it is reasonable to predict a set of issues that are likely to emerge in the implementation of Tier Two interventions. Two particular issues emerge. First, what are the essential features of a team-based problem-solving process that would support effective Tier Two interventions for individual students in the general education classroom? Second, are there students who need more intensive and longer-term interventions that are delivered in group formats outside of the general education classroom using a standard protocol approach? In considering these questions, it is necessary to address implications for the organization of other remedial (non-special) education programs that are typically operated in schools.
School-based problem solving teams. The extant models for delivering secondary interventions for individual students are based in school-based problem-solving team models. Examples include Pennsylvania's Instructional Support Teams (ISTs; Kovaleski Gickling, Morrow, & Swank, 1999), Instructional Consultation Teams (Rosenfield and Gravois, 1999), and the Iowa Model (Grimes and Kurns, 2003). All of these approaches focus on a team of teachers and specialists consulting with classroom teachers on individual students through a problem-solving process. The goal is to craft adaptations to the instructional program in the general education classroom that are intended to resolve the "problem" presented by the target student, while having a positive impact on the instructional program for all students.
Based on experiences with the statewide implementation of ISTs in Pennsylvania, Kovaleski (2002) articulated a number of "best practice" features that should be in place in operating school-based problem-solving teams. These features can be conceptualized as additions to a basic teacher assistance team (TAT) approach that was the pioneering effort in this area (Chalfant, Pysh, & Moultrie, 1979). In the TAT model, a team of teachers identified the problem, set a measurable goal, brainstormed solutions, made recommendations to the classroom teacher, and reconvened to determine the effects of the intervention.
As indicated in Figure 1, a number of special functions need to be added to the (former) TAT model to increase the effectiveness of the problem-solving process. These features include using curriculum-based assessment (Gickling & Thompson, 1985) to assist in problem identification, and curriculum-based measurement (Shinn, 2002) for ongoing progress monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of the intervention. Additionally, Kovaleski (2002) noted that it is critical that a team member work in a collaborative, peer-coaching format to establish the intervention in the general education classroom. This procedure is designed to eliminate the common problem of teams creating useful solutions, but failing to achieve treatment fidelity in the classroom (Flugum & Reschly, 1994). By actively working with the target student in the classroom during the early stages of the intervention, the consulting team member, who is knowledgeable about the delivery of the suggested strategy, can determine the effectiveness of the intervention, while modeling it for the classroom teacher. It is presumed that such "hands-on" assistance will alleviate teacher "resistance" to the intervention that is commonly reported in teams that use only verbal consultation techniques.
Figure 1: Addition of program features in the current problem-solving teaming model with original features of former teacher assistance team model
Another unique process feature identified by Kovaleski (2002) is the procedure of having the consulting team member work with the classroom teacher to embed the successful intervention into the daily classroom routine. As the consulting team member fades out of the intervention, the classroom teacher takes full responsibility for the ongoing implementation. When the strategy is used in a whole or small-group format, there is a presumed greater likelihood for the intervention to continue beyond the time limits of the support process. There is also the potential that the successful intervention will have impact on other non-target students who may have similar needs.
As "pre-referral" teams become Tier Two problem-solving teams, it is believed that these process features will be especially needed in establishing effective procedures on a system-wide basis.
Group-based interventions outside the regular classroom. It is well established that the school-based problem-solving team process is effective with large groups of students, but falls short of resolving the difficulties faced by all students served by the model. For example, Hartman and Fay (1996) found that 85% of students served by ISTs in Pennsylvania were not referred for evaluation for special education. The referral rate figure of 15% corresponds closely to the number of students identified by Grimes and Kurns (2003) and Kamps and Greenwood (2003) as needing secondary interventions. (Again, it is unknown if this percentage might be lower in a system that had viable Tier One and Tier Two programs in place.)
Just who these students might be may be conceptualized by considering the two dimensions of the dual-discrepancy model -- level of performance and rate of learning (Fuchs, 2003). Students who are identified for support but who are at or near the typical class-wide performance level with a typical rate of learning may be able to be served by simple consultation with the classroom teacher or by a school-based problem solving team. This group would include students who display behavior or performance problems in the classroom, but who have otherwise average academic functioning levels. Similarly, team-based support for the classroom teacher might well suffice for students who at or near typical academic performance levels, but who are displaying a lower rate of learning. These problems are probably transient in that the students would have had to have near typical learning rates in previous grades to be at or near typical performance in the current grade. Their current slower rate of learning may be a function of needing to learn new and more complex material or a result of some environmental event that may have an impact on school performance (e.g., divorce, death of a parent).
The 15-20% of students who fail to respond to in-class interventions developed through problem-solving teams undoubtedly require remedial services outside of the general education classroom. These students can be conceptualized as having significantly lower levels of performance than their grade-level peers. A number of authors (Fuchs et al.. 2003; Vaughn & Fuchs, 2003; Vaughn, Linan-Thompson, & Hickman, 2003) have suggested that these students need a short-term course of pull-out intervention that is based on a standard protocol of empirically validated instructional treatments. McMaster et al. (2003) suggested that such interventions need to be "special-education-like," including immediate corrective feedback, mastery of content before moving to the next lesson, more time on activities that are especially difficult, more opportunities to respond, fewer transitions, setting goals and monitoring progress, and the development of a special relationship with a tutor. While these authors suggested that progress for such students may require one-to-one tutoring, others have had success with small groups of three to six students (Kamps & Greenwood, 2003; Vaughn et al., 2003).
While there appears to be a consensus that the intervention for these students needs to be intensive and research-based, the length of these interventions seem less clear. Vaughn and Fuchs (2003) suggest that these types of secondary interventions be of fixed duration (e.g., 10 to 15 weeks). Students who display accelerated rates of learning during this period, and in fact, close the gap in performance level with their non-struggling peers are cycled back to the general education classroom. Students who display consistently low rates of progress during these intensive interventions would be referred to Tier Three for consideration for special education.
A pragmatic issue about this scenario is simply whether this is enough time to make a defendable decision about special education eligibility. It is conceivable that students who have experienced a lack of effective instruction because of poor curricular and instructional approaches or because of situational factors like frequent family location changes may be so far behind that they will require more than one year to make enough progress to be adequately taught without an intensive pull-out program. This situation would particularly pertain to many urban schools in which large percentages of students are well below proficiency levels. It also pertains to students who are identified as being deficient beyond the primary grades. From roughly fourth grade on, it is difficult for general education programs to meet the needs of students who have very deficient proficiency levels.
Two alternatives to this dilemma can be suggested. First, students who display low performance and low rates of learning after a time-limited course of intensive, standard-protocol intervention could be identified as eligible and provided with a special education program. This approach would likely increase the numbers of students in special education, especially in school districts that have large numbers of students below basic academic levels. This problem may be somewhat offset if special education were understood to be a transient service. That is, as students' rates of learning accelerated, and the gap between performance levels closed, students could be exited from special education. Unfortunately, historic trends would have to be reversed in this scenario, because most students who enter special education programs never exit.
A second alternative is to provide special-education-like interventions for extended periods of time (e.g., up to two years) without identification of the student as eligible for special education. In 1989, a number of national organizations envisioned such a process in the "Right without Labels" (RWL) position paper (National Association of School Psychologists, 2002). The RWL concept allowed for the provision of special education services for a limited time during which parental due process rights were protected, but the student was not identified as eligible for special education. The RWL process would enable school teams to gather multiple assessments of the student's level and rate of learning over a longer period of time. By doing so, it is imagined that the reliability and validity of the eligibility decision would be improved, while avoiding the "wait to fail" aspect of the current procedures (President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education, 2002).
Whether LEAs will want to utilize special education teachers in providing direct instructional services for students who are not identified as having disabilities will undoubtedly be a controversial topic. Given special education funding levels in many LEAs, it may be necessary to reserve special education teachers for those students who display low levels of proficiency and low rates of learning over extended periods of time. These intractable students may require the type of adaptations to curriculum, instruction, planning, and materials that have (or should be) provided in a fully realized special education program. The other obvious functionaries at this stage are remedial teachers and specialists who are already providing longer-term interventions for students. Considering the implementation of standard-protocol interventions may be synonymous with restructuring these services to ensure that scientifically based instruction is being used.
Regardless of who provides these services, it is likely that, at a building level, it will be necessary for school principals to reconceptualize available remedial resources into a more seamless system. It has long been acknowledged that "(t)he principal reports that growing numbers of children with problems are being referred to her office, possibly because the existing specialized programs have been organized into a set of little 'boxes' that leave many children 'falling through the cracks'" (Reynolds, Wang, & Walberg, 1987, p. 392). To eliminate this fragmentation of services, it will be necessary to take a more flexible approach to service delivery. Kamps and Greenwood (2003) provided an excellent set of organizational factors that will have to be changed to realize intensive Tier Two interventions, including "special and general educators pooling resources ... creative/flexible scheduling to allocate sufficient time to small group instruction ... creative uses of personnel resources i.e., many people teaching reading groups ... [and] flexibility providing curriculum changes to support key early literacy skills; staff support for increased use of phonics-driven curriculum for larger numbers of students (p.11)."
These considerations reflect well the extent of the restructuring that will need to occur at the building level. Rather than assignments according to job title (e.g., remedial reading teacher, Title I teacher, etc.), all professional staff who do not teach grade-level general education classes could be deployed as a "literacy team," whose mission is to provide assessment and interventions that are directly targeted to students' needs. These services may be transitory, short-term periods of standard-protocol interventions, or longer-term special-education-like services. To accomplish this blending of roles and services, the traditional barriers that have existed across specialists in the schools will need to be broken down. Currently, different specialists (e.g., remedial reading vs. special education) read different journals, attend different conferences, often have different terminology, and frequently have different beliefs about how to teach. There needs to be a consensus at the LEA level about what works from a scientifically based perspective, followed by cross-training for all specialists in a common set of evidence-based techniques. Only when all specialists are fully trained in these procedures can they be deployed flexibly to meet students' needs. Ideally, specialist should be considered to be fungible, so that any available specialist can step in to provide the types of pull-out or push-in services that are needed for an individual or group of students.
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