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.