RTI and IDEA 2004

 According to IDEA, RTI should be implemented because it provides early intervention for student's with learning disabilities. IDEA 2004 is even allowing schools to spend more money for intervention activities because of the more student's identified and the more services that need to be provided by schools everywhere. IDEA 2004 sees RTI as a substitute for IQ achievement discrepancy because of how well it selects and monitors students at risk, and how multi tiered, problem solving and how well it provides treatment protocols. IDEA believes that one of the best strategies for identifying students is to screen all students to determine what there end of the year performance might be like to see if they should be monitored the following year, or now. Different ways that the IDEA thinks student's should be monitored, after identified, is through a standardized achievement test in only the area the child exhibits issues, a criterion referenced figure for week by week improvement and a local or national estimate for week by week improvement to see if student's are just behind or are in need of special services. The multi tiers is said to be used to increase intensity for students so the tiers start with teacher-centered instruction and continues to move up to relying on instructors who have expertise in special education students or RTI in general. Problem-solving, that IDEA discusses, is used by many teachers  in order to see how bad the problem is, analyze why or how the problem is where it is at, create goals for intervention, go through with the goals, monitor how well student's are doing with the goals, and see where intervention is still needed. Schools and teachers adopted this because it breaks down the problem into steps so each individual student is correctly identified and getting the help they need. This plan allows each student to be looked at and identified, and not groups of students identified together.
     The IDEA also feels very strongly about the idea that RTI is a better tool for determining LD then any other model. With other approaches students have been over identified and under identified and schools have had more costs of students with LD then ever. IDEA believes other models have led to inconsistencies in LD and who is identified which leads to a bigger problem with our nation. The reason IDEA feels that other approaches beside RTI are not even worth trying is being student's fall way behind before they even can be considered for LD, and poor teaching is mistaken for student's having a LD. RTI is the opposite, RTI encourages the use of evidence-based instruction in all tiers, before moving a student to a different tier, which essentially will lower the number of children who are not correctly identified. It is not fair to student's to be labeled as having a learning disability, if they do not because then they will be put down, and not challenged like they need to be to grow, whereas if student's go unidentified then they are set up for failure their whole lives. RTI has research and evidence supporting it, where most other methods do not. Why would we want student's to fall behind before we identify them, why not identify them in the process of tiers, where student's are observed while they participate in class? IDEA strongly encourages use of RTI because of its success rates and credibility, and they encourage others to do the same when identifying LD.