The California Department of Education’s philosophy and definition of Response to Instruction and Intervention provides a basis for understanding a systematic, data-driven approach to instruction believed to benefit every student in the effort to provide a world-class education for all students, from early childhood to adulthood.
Of the many solution strategies employed nationwide, RtI2 is an approach with evidence of success with creating the conditions necessary for closing the achievement gap and improving problem behaviors. The RtI2 process focuses on individual students who are struggling and provides a vehicle for teamwork to strengthen their performances before educational problems increase in intensity. Leadership is critical to the implementation of RtI2. To be effective, RtI2 must harness and coordinate the full resources of the school, district, and community. Administrators and their leadership teams, in collaboration with all teachers, have central roles in the planning, implementation, and successful day-to-day use of the RtI2 approach. Analysis of how students respond to instruction and interventions is an organizing principle for structures and programs that already exist in our schools. An education system implementing RtI2 promotes collaboration and shared responsibility for the learning of all students across all personnel, programs, and parent inclusion processes located in any given school. Further, data gathered from RtI2 can be utilized in the identification process to determine if a student requires special education services.
California’s RtI2 framework, supported by national research and in accordance with federal law, emphasizes effective instruction and earlier intervention for students experiencing difficulty learning to ensure that they are not misdiagnosed or over identified for special education services due to lack of appropriate instruction.
In California, RtI2 is a systematic, data-driven approach to instruction that benefits every student. RtI2 integrates resources from general education, categorical programs, and special education through a comprehensive system of core instruction and tiered levels of interventions to benefit every student. The CDE work group expanded the notion of RtI to RtI2, Instruction and Intervention, to emphasize the full spectrum of instruction, from general to intensive.