RTI and Special Education Enrollment Declines
Justin Bathon on Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 8:06AM I'm teaching a special education class at the moment and I was forced to reevaluate a long held belief. You see, since IDEA was first passed as EAHCA in 1975, there has been a steady increase in special education enrollments nationally. At least, that was what I told my students because last time I checked, that hadn't changed. Well, I checked again after a discussion about RTI implementation in Kentucky and sure enough, at least in Kentucky, we have for the first time seen a decline. Here is the data and here is a chart:
Okay, a few things to note. I put in the trendline so that you can see the trend is still very much in the positive direction since 1992. Second, there was a negligible decline in the 07 numbers, but a fairly substantial decline in the 08 numbers (so it will be interesting what 09 reveals). Third, this is not statistically correlated yet to RTI implementation, so there might be some other unexplained factor that is accounting for the drop. For instance maybe the economy is playing a role, maybe we did just finally hit a saturation point - there may be lots of non-RTI explanations.
But, my hunch is RTI. I can't speak to other states because I have been in Kentucky the last few years, but Kentucky has been very serious about RTI implementation and most schools across the Commonwealth are firmly on board from what I have seen. RTI has accounted for drops before in district numbers, but at least for me this is the first statewide drop I have seen. I checked a couple other states and there are some mixed data. Oregon and Illinois are still going up. Kansas seems to have leveled off. Maine has seen a decrease, as has Texas. Part of this, though, may be a function of when the latest data is available.
Anyway, someone needs to get out there and look at all the state's data and compare that to RTI implementation. These numbers will eventually aggregate into national numbers and we'll have a little better national picture, but what we really need to be able to statistically verify is whether and how much effect RTI is having on special education enrollments at the local, state and national levels. On top of that, we really need a TON of data on those students that are being directed away from special education because of RTI. Are they achieving? What is the recurrence rate? And, a ton more questions. And, we need all this by the next round of IDEA reauthorization.
Reader Comments (4)
The cynic in me worries that the reason there are fewer special ed referrals is not because RTI works so well, but that either (1) teachers give up even trying to make the referral because there are just too many hoops to jump through, or (2) the heavy cost of special ed fosters an environment in which RTI is administratively manipulated to create successes where they may not exist.
It would be interesting to also graph the total 3-21 population in Kentucky over this time too. If the total population is decreasing at the same time the special education population is decreasing, that says something different.
@ Nancy - Yeah, very legitimate points. Notice I did not say that RTI was "working." I am still very much undecided on that point. We have to see how these kids that would have been LD, but were not because of RTI are doing in a few years.
@ Joel - Well, KDE has not released the 2008 data on overall enrollments yet, but since 01 there have been very consistent gains in enrollments on a trendline that looked very similar to the one for special education. Anyway, we'll have to wait and see, but I still think we are looking at a change manifesting itself in the data. Great point though.
Justin - thanks for the clarification. Whatever the reasons underneath this data, it surely is interesting enough to study. We are all wrestling with concepts and issues around special needs students.