MTSS, RTI, Special Education…OH My! Gaining
an understanding of MTSS and RTI from Drs.
Lynn Fuchs and Joe Jenkins
Facilitator: A lot of terms are used to discuss tiered systems. Is RTI and MTSs the same thing?
How are they similar and how are they different?
Lynn Fuchs: So I think that from most people’s point of view, the two terms, RTI and MTSS
can be used interchangeably. I think that they both refer to multi-tiered prevention system. I
think often they both rely predominantly on three tiered models that incorporate assessmentintertwines assessment with instruction and intervention that’s evidence-based for the purpose of
decreasing school failure. I think that there are many models of RTI, and many models of MTSS
and I think that there is probably more variation within practice, associated with each term then
there are differences between the two terms.
Facilitator: What are the essential components of an MTSS framework and what challenges do
schools face when implementing?
Lynn Fuchs: Well, I think that there are several assessment components and several types of
interventions that comprise a typical RTI model. We have screening for the purpose –which is
assessment, for the purpose of identifying students who are not profiting from the general
education program sufficiently. We have ongoing progress monitoring to assess students
responsiveness to the intervention, they get to supplement the general education core program.
And we have to make a third kind of assessment decision, which is whether students at the end
of an intervention are sufficiently competent in the academic domain to return to the genera
education program and profit there without additional support, or whether they need to remain in
intervention or even move to a more intensive form of intervention. So as that first part of my
response indicates, within an RTI system, we think about at least three tiers of instruction. Tier 1
is the core program, which is what people generally think of as general education, where students
are with a classroom teacher and the classroom teacher is doing a good job of delivering the core
program, is making certain accommodations, trying to ensure that all students are motivated to
work hard, and produce the work they are capable of.
Then we have a second level or tier of instruction, which is now referred to as
intervention and that occurs for students who are not responding adequately as shown in the
progress monitoring data or the screening data. In the general education program, and typically
in most schools, Tier 2 intervention occurs with a small group, validated program. It’s validated,
meaning that it’s been shown to work with a vast majority of students who are not responding to
the core program. We expect, and mostly students do, respond nicely to the validated program
and many of those students can return to the general education program after the intervention has
been completed. [These students] do tend to thrive better in the general education program, but
we know on the basis of research data, that we cannot expect all students that receive Tier 2
intervention to respond nicely as we wish to tier 2 interventions, because they need something
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that’s more individualized or more sustained. Those children need to move on to a more
intensive level of intervention. Now sometimes that more intensive level of intervention is
delivered under the auspices of special education, sometimes its delivered using the structure of
general education, [but] that’s not the key extinction. Whether what’s special education versus
general education, the key distinction should be the level of intensity, or individualization that
occurs at the three different levels of instruction. That said, sometimes schools have more than 3
tiers.
Joe Jenkins: Right, and I think that the challenges that come up there have to do with collecting
progress monitoring data, not just performance, but actually collecting and using it. Schools are
really very good at globalizing to collect benchmark data three times a year. They use that
benchmark data to make adjustments in who or which children receive which levels of tiers. I
think schools have a harder time using, [or] maximizing the use of the progress monitoring data.
[Using the data], it requires analysis, it requires making changes off them that are problematic
for teachers, because they, if they, try to make an adjustment that is appropriate for some
members of their group that actually needs a change, some kind of change, some members of the
group may not need the change. Constraints in the schools with time, resources, and often it’s
really a mistake to underestimate the burden that teachers face individualizing instruction. It’s
very important that they have some help and resources that it’s not always falling on individual
teachers to figure out how to create individualized instruction for a group of kids that are not
always that homogeneous in their needs.
Lynn Fuchs: Yeah, and there are a lot of moving parts to an RTI system. I think that when
schools are designing there RTI system, because there is many ways to design an RTI system.
They need to be mindful of at least in the beginning, having a model that’s streamlined and doable. Once they have that version of an RTI model implemented they can, they will know
enough, in conducting RTI and they’ll know what capacity remains for them so that they can add
the complexity that there school needs.
Facilitator: How has MTSS changed the landscape of education?
Joe Jenkins: I think that the major influence of those two, [MTSS and RTI] essentially are the
same systems, has been on data collection and data usage. Never in my lifetime, before RTI or
MTSS, did I witness teachers, general education teachers, making such intensive and frequent
use of data to have discussions and to discuss changes in their curriculum, in their services, and
the decisions on who will be served by different teachers. That’s all pretty new and it evolved
from the tiered model, the assessments that are built into the tiered model.
Facilitator: What advice would you provide to school administrators, educators, and parents
related to MTSS implementation?
Joe Jenkins: I would say, have some patience; it takes a while, these things, this kind of a
model. [This model] is really demanding and it takes a lot of learning on teachers part to collect
data, to use data, to make judgments about intervention, to use resources in the school, to
participate with their peers on multiple teams that are dealing with assignment of students to tiers
with trying to figure out how to make, how to create more individualized instruction. It takes
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time and it’s overwhelming- the whole thing. A lot of schools try to start with one grade and then
add a grade each year to the multi-tiered system. That’s a smart thing to do, but people have to
have some patience and teachers have to have a lot of stick with-it-ness to get this thing to work
the way its suppose to.
Lynn Fuchs: This is more limited response. I agree with everything Joe said, but I think if I was
asked for one piece of advice as a school, in beginning to design their MTSS system, I would tell
them to be very thoughtful and deliberate with their methods for screening students into tiered 2
interventions. [This is] because a common mistake that I see in the schools, is that they over
identify students on the basis of very basic and easy to administer, quick screeners that put too
many children into intervention, which is very costly to deliver. And I think that schools might
be better served by spending a little bit more time doing a second stage of assessment after the
initial screener to the subset of kids that do not pass the initial screener and then go into an
additional level of assessment to make sure that we have a subset of children that really do
require intervention because a lot of kids that do not need it are flooding tier 2 intervention and
we need to find a better balance between delivering quality tier 1 with only this subset that really
need Tier 2.
Joe Jenkins: I agree with Lynn’s statement. I’m concerned that way more students are identified
[for] Tier 2 service for intervention. Then, as Lynn said, it puts pressure on the intervention
system, because there are more kids than can really be taught well given schools resources when
you over identify, and what’s more is that I think that students that are misidentified for Tier 2
start receiving instruction that is not appropriate for them. They often miss out on the level of
instruction that they ought to be receiving, so they are being robbed of the regular classroom
instruction, which often is very high quality with the revisions that teachers and schools made to
Tier 1. So, there are kind of two problems with the over-identification.
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