Comments on: Hard Luck Creek

By: TFT

TFT — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:30:06 +0000

RTI, ULSS, and the rest are simply money-making ventures for the purveyors. Teachers know who needs intervention; hell, we are muted when we try to advocate for intervention because it costs money!

I guess we, American Public Education advocates, must wait for this trend to peak, then it will go away, only to be brought back in twenty years.

Just teach your kids and stay out of trouble.

By: Nancy Flanagan

Nancy Flanagan — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:45:54 +0000

“…those of us closest to the classroom see that the plan on paper won’t take us where we need to go, and there may be a better way to get there. Compliance and control then become at least part of our discussion…”

This is the single greatest change in schools, in my experience over three decades. It’s not that (most) teachers are resisting change, or unconcerned about their students’ learning progress. It’s the fact that their experience with these particular students and the act of teaching does not square with all of the goals and processes of the new program. And when they point that out, the problem/solution is misidentified as non-compliance, rather than dissonance in professional judgment.

The next step in this thinking looks like this: where can I get a revolving-door cadre of teachers with little experience but lots of confidence that they can change the world? Teachers like *that* would be compliant…

By: Doug Noon

Doug Noon — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:20:09 +0000

Brian, your experience sounds all too much like what I expected. Thanks for the warning.

By: Brian Crosby

Brian Crosby — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:07:55 +0000

Welcome to the world of RTI! We started about a year and a half ago and the process and how you keep the data has only changed about 4 or 5 times. Some data collection we do on Aimsweb and another data collection service (which has changed twice) we use only happens once every 3 months and the trainers can’t figure out why people don’t remember all the steps or all they can do … besides the fact that it already changed a little in that time.

Then watch out when school board members and department heads and the like figure out that we can print out this data. Not only will you get to input data (so you can print it out) of even more dubious worth than some of the other data, you get to have meetings where the upshot is usually when we inform whoever it is that much of this data can’t be compared, or can’t be compared from one grade to another (well it can I guess but doing that is worthless)or doesn’t really tell us much that would help drive instruction.

So you were right on in your post when you talk about wondering what might be coming that you’ll have to adjust to instead of doing what you know and think will work well, or using the data that is helpful (and there is some) to make meaningful adjustments. We have the added bonus of not making AYP for the 2nd year (in 3 categories out of 48) so we already have a training next week that will continue every month for the year!!! So if they let you use RTI fairly unfettered, you’ll probably find it mostly valuable … but … : )

Have a great year!
Brian

By: Clarence Fisher

Clarence Fisher — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:49:00 +0000

Glad to hear your fire has turned around. Living here, I’ve had some experiences with them as well. We’ve been evacuated over the years several times when fires creep too close to our one highway in and out of town.

As for the “quick fix;” it simply does not exist in education (or probably in any other industry for that matter)