Taking Action. Austin Buffum
culture as the norms, values, rituals, beliefs, symbols, and ceremonies that produce a school persona (Deal & Peterson, 1999).
Working from the premise that the purpose of establishing a system of interventions is to ensure all students learn at high levels, there must be consensus among and between staff on two fundamental assumptions.
1. Educators assume primary responsibility to ensure high levels of learning for every student: As Buffum et al. (2012) state, “While parental, societal, and economic forces impact student learning, the actions of the educators will ultimately determine each child’s mastery of the essential academic skills, knowledge, and behaviors needed for future success in school” (p. 16).
2. Educators assume that all students can learn at high levels: We define high levels of learning as “high school plus,” connoting every student will graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge to continue to learn. To compete in the 21st century global marketplace, “students must continue to learn beyond high school, and there are many paths for that learning, including trade schools, internships, community colleges, and universities. To achieve this outcome, students must master essential grade-level curriculum each year” (Buffum et al., 2012, p. 16).
Many schools want to hedge on the word ensure, and instead commit to a mission that states it is their job to provide their students the opportunity to learn. It is virtually impossible for RTI to succeed within this school culture, as the very purpose of RTI is to provide students additional time and support when they don’t succeed after initial teaching. Buffum and colleagues (2012) write that an opportunity to learn school believes:
Its responsibility for student learning ends once the child has been given the chance to learn the first time. But a learning-focused school understands that the school was not built so that teachers have a place to teach—it was built so that the children of the community have a place to learn. Learning-focused schools embrace RTI, as it is a proven process to help them achieve their mission. (p. 18)
As referenced in the introduction, research proves that RTI is twice as powerful as any single environmental factor that can impact student success (Bailey & Dynarski, 2011; Hattie, 2009, 2012; Reardon, 2011). Until educators stop blaming factors outside of school for why failing students have not learned essential academic curriculum, and instead look internally at what they can control to ensure this outcome, it is unlikely they will fully commit to the RTI process.
The second essential assumption required to create a culture of collective responsibility is for educators to assume that all students can learn at high levels.
When we ask educators to commit to a mission of ensuring that all students learn at high levels, a reasonable concern is this: What about students with disabilities? Isn’t it unfair to commit to a mission of learning for all when some students lack the cognitive ability to achieve this outcome?
Research proves that RTI is twice as powerful as any single environmental factor that can impact student success.
Undeniably, there is a very small percentage of students with profound cognitive disabilities that make it impossible for them to learn the higher-level-thinking skills required for postsecondary education. In the United States, we understand their limitations and would not expect these individuals to become self-sufficient, independent adults. We are not suggesting that these students cannot learn or that schools do not have a responsibility for their education. While almost all students must transition to postsecondary education to succeed in the global economy, these students are not expected to compete in this environment, so their curriculum in school might not meet our criteria of high school plus.
So when we ask educators to assume all students can learn at high levels, we should define all as any student who can or might be an independent adult someday. This reasonable definition means that most students currently in special education must learn at high levels too. These students are not going to receive modified rent someday, accommodated bills, or an IEP at work. These students can and must leave the K–12 system with the skills needed to succeed in postsecondary education and in life.
Regardless of this reality, many educators refuse to assume that all students can learn at high levels because, beyond students with profound disabilities, they believe that some students lack the ability to learn rigorous curriculum. These educators often point to students with IQ scores that are above the threshold of profound disabilities but much lower than the average. Yet we know that IQ testing is an imperfect science that was not designed to definitively predict a child’s future academic limitations. Also, IQ testing has been legally determined to be culturally biased (Powers, Hagans-Murillo, & Restori, 2004).
Students can and must leave the K–12 system with the skills needed to succeed in postsecondary education and in life.
While working with schools, we hear some educators claim that the law of averages—the distribution of the bell-shaped curve—proves that we must always expect some students to be below average. We should not be surprised that many educators feel this way, since these assumptions are the foundation of our traditional school system. Because the traditional U.S. K–12 system was preparing students for a farm-and-factory-driven economy, people assumed that only a small percentage of students would learn beyond grammar school. Therefore, schools did not expect all students to learn at high levels. Instead, they ranked and sorted students on a bell-shaped curve, which identified those few expected to reach higher education. In this kind of system, it is reasonable to expect that “a few people will excel, most will be satisfactory or average, and a few will fail” (Fendler & Muzaffar, 2008, p. 63). Yet Benjamin Bloom (1971) states:
The normal curve is not sacred. It describes the outcome of a random process. Since education is a purposeful activity in which we seek to have the students learn what we teach, the achievement distribution should be very different from the normal curve if our instruction is effective. In fact, our educational efforts may be said to be unsuccessful to the extent that student achievement is normally distributed. (p. 49)
RTI is the purposeful activity that can flatten the bell-shaped curve and ensure all students succeed.
And most tragically, some educators tell us that a trained teacher can spot students who just don’t have it—the capacity to learn at high levels. Overwhelming evidence would prove otherwise. We know that a student’s ethnicity, native language, and economic status do not reduce his or her capacity for learning. Yet, across the United States, minority students, non-native language learners, and economically disadvantaged students are disproportionately represented in special education (Brantlinger, 2006; Ferri & Connor, 2006; Skiba et al., 2006, 2008) and underrepresented in gifted and honors programs (Donovan & Cross, 2002).
RTI is the purposeful activity that can flatten the bell-shaped curve and ensure all students succeed.
Why are these students being over-identified as learning disabled? Some educators assume these students are less capable, and these inaccurate judgments often become a self-fulfilling prophecy for their students (Buffum et al., 2012). Educators typically view students who enter school with a head start from their home environment as being capable of learning at high levels, and they are subsequently placed in more rigorous coursework, taught at advanced levels, expected to achieve, and thus are much more likely to learn at this level. Conversely, students perceived as being incapable of learning at high levels are placed in below-grade-level curriculum, taught at remedial levels, expected to achieve at lower levels, and to no one’s surprise, most likely learn at low levels. These outcomes falsely confirm the school’s initial assumptions and reinforce the misgiving some educators have to committing to a mission of learning for all.
We could make a convincing argument that, regardless of how effective a school’s system of interventions, it is possible that some students might face cognitive challenges or environmental factors that prove beyond a school’s ability to overcome. But here is the critical point: to start the journey, we must accept primary responsibility for what we can control—student mastery of academic skills, knowledge, and dispositions—and assume that each student is capable of achieving these outcomes, regardless of his or her demographic background. Consider the alternative.