The Need for Leadership
The nation's schools stand at yet another crossroads. On the one hand, there now exists a set of instructional procedures that have been amply demonstrated through empirical research to bring large groups of children to acceptable levels of literacy (Denton, Vaughn, & Fletcher, 2003). There is now a federal law (i.e., NCLB) that appears to require that these practices are used. The proposed changes to IDEA that would encourage a different approach to identifying learning disabilities through an RtI method is consistent with these movements. Using an RtI approach would likely have the intended indirect consequence of encouraging teachers to use these scientifically based practices, which should simultaneously reduce the numbers of students who are significantly below proficiency levels, and correspondingly reduce or level the number of students in special education.
On the other hand, to accomplish these goals will require a rethinking of how schools are operated and how educational knowledge is used at the local level. The categorical system of different specialists delivering different instructional programs based on theoretical rather than research-based models needs to give way to coherent remedial services that are directly targeted to students' needs and are flexible enough to change as these needs change. School officials (superintendents, curriculum directors, special education directors, and building principals) need to understand educational research and put in place foundational instructional programs that are evidence-based. One would hope that the emergence of consistent research findings would have ended the various educational "wars" (i.e., reading, mathematics), but they have not. Consequently, at the LEA level, school leaders need to embrace a skeptical and rigorous posture to make the changes that are needed for all students to succeed.
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