There are two overarching goals of RtI. The first is to deliver evidence-based interventions and the second is to use students’ response to those interventions as a basis for determining instructional needs and intensity. Special education eligibility decisions can be a product of these efforts, but is not the primary goal. Using RtI as the data base for making that decision, special education services (i.e., what does this student need?) are determined by the student’s rate of response to intervention and the size of the gap that exists between the student and the benchmark. As a result, identification is not about the student’s label, but rather about determining what interventions are most helpful in closing the gap in a timely manner. Special education services can be a means to providing effective intervention services for students, but are inherently linked to instructional efforts that occurred in general education. The delivery of special education programs is part of an integrated service delivery system that is pictured as a circle (recycling on itself until success is found), not as a straight line, where special education programs are the last thing on the line (and sometimes a goal, or end in itself). The major issues in RTI involve the need to enhance the range and diversity of academic and behavioral interventions in general education (Tier I) and to increase the impact of supplemental interventions in Tiers II and III, not how to make eligibility decisions that divorce special education from general education.

Bill East, Director, National Association of State Directors of Special Education NASDSE, Myths About Response to Intervention (RtI), May 2006