Is My Kid Learning!? What is RTI?!

A new catch phrase in education today is RTI , which stands for Response to Intervention. RTI is part of the 2004 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Response to Intervention is supposed to help students who struggle with learning at the same rate and pace as his or her peers. Students who fall behind are indentified and given proper instruction through the RTI process. RTI defines problems by using data. The problems can be addressed in the school setting by a creation of interventions tied to the students’ needs. If a student does not make adequate progress over a period of time then the student is referred to special education.

Test scores, class participation, records and routine progress monitoring are used to identify a student in need. If the student is moderate to high risk, he or she is given specialized intervention or more support that is suppose to help the student make the appropriate gains. Constant assessments are to be given on a regular basis to address the student’s deficits and help modify the curriculum to meet the student’s educational necessities.

This plan is a great plan!! Is it the answer to the problems in education? No. The people who coined RTI had a great idea in theory. If all teachers could be trained to look for nuances in learning, use assessments to drive instruction and know how to motivate and support struggling learners, RTI would not be needed. Just because the plan for RTI exist it does not mean it will work in a struggling school or with all struggling students.

Struggling schools are struggling for a reason. The dynamics and climate is one that overlooks student needs. The needs and educational holes are so great that only the high priority problems get met and the lower needs are shelved. That’s how students that need a little support go unnoticed. It’s a snowball effect and attention should be given to it.

Parents, forget the long teacher conference meetings about nothing. Ask to see the data that proves your child is progressing. Ask to see the portfolio of work that shows a progression. Ask developmental questions as well as concrete questions of your child’s teacher. If you are not satisfied move your child to a better school. Time is too short to have precious years wasted.

New Aged Kindergarten?

Remember your early school experiences in kindergarten? Those days were filled with learning how to use scissors, sharing and sitting on the carpet while you admired your new teacher. The old kindergarten is a distant memory compared to changes in early education today.

The standards and content for kindergarten are more rigorous and students cannot successfully perform in today’s typical kindergarten classroom without knowledge in language and content (colors, body parts, counting, etc.) ability in motor skills, self-care and social skills.

The state of Florida’s Board of Education increased state funded preschool programs because of the overwhelming number of students who were not prepared for kindergarten.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, pre-K providers in Florida are being scrutinized by the state on how they prepare students for school. Florida has developed a tool to review pre-K programs. Those programs that fail are deemed “low performing”. The Florida Department of Education is projecting 39% of pre-K programs will earn “low performing” marks in the up coming year.

The state of California has taken a different approach toward early classroom success. Recently, a law called the Kindergarten Readiness Act passed. This law will move the birthday cutoff date for new kindergartners from December to September.

This new kind of class is called Transitional Kindergarten. Educational theorists think that Transitional Kindergarten, will better prepare children to be successful.

The law also requires school districts to offer a new grade level for young children who have fall birthdays and have typically been too young to start kindergarten.

According to Mercury News.com “children with birthdays between Sept. 2 and Dec. 2 — those who would have been eligible for kindergarten under the old system — will be guaranteed a slot once the program is fully implemented in 2014.” Students will have an opportunity to attend school for two years to prepare for 1st grade.

Kindergarten changed and a variety of programs are available to help prepare your child to be successful. Check your state Department of Education website for changes in policy and programs of support.

First published on on Technorati as New Aged Kindergarten.

Teacher Do You Care- The Pete Chronicles

I had some great exchanges with Pete today! I used his script, “Rick ruins everything!” as a jumping off place to create a story. I made up a short story line then asked Pete to continue with more details. What a funny, hilarious story we created! Pete was laughing and producing ideas so quickly.



Next time I see him we will write the story or make a play so we can invite in his peers to participate. Pete was connecting and relating. I consider this to be education.

Teacher Do You Care- The Pete Chronicles

When a staff member who is assigned to my room cannot show up it creates a big hole. I am often told sorry I cannot come to your class someone else needs me more. When there is not enough staff I can usually handle it. Is it optimal no?

I did not have enough staff to cover the students that needed more assistance yesterday. In addition the administration had given me mandatory extra work to do which included hours of testing students. This meant I could not spend time with Pete. It was heartbreaking!



Pete did not understand why he was moved to a office with more supervision. He said he would be good. This was the heartbreak. I told him he was good; he was great. I tried to explain that I had so much work that I could not spend time with him.

I protested and stated the students would suffer with no avail.

This is how the system looses the good ones. The system wants the paper work done and unfortunately it is at the expense of student learning. This system is broke.

Teacher Do You Care- The Pete Chronicles

Tough day for Pete

His teacher allowed him return to his work-study job. I bumped into him as he was walking off campus with his class. We exchanged a high five. He did not attend last week because of his behavior. We talked about it all everyday, Pete really wanted to attend this week.



A little later in the hour, I received a call from Pete’s teacher and she informed me that he was sent back to campus from his job. According to his teacher, he started his cartoon scripts as soon as he started work. She said she wanted to give him a chance but she could not have him laughing and repeating. After the work incident Pete was to attend my class.

Needless-to-say he was persistent about his self-soothing (his cartoon phrasing) and it took a while to try and reconnect with him. Staff was short today and many students needed extra help. I did my best. Pete did not shout out in my class today. He did say his cartoon phrase to himself a few times while I was trying to talk to him. Each time I asked for his attention he gave it to me and he took my direction.



The struggle of transition before a break in school is typical. This is often the story with students that struggle. The students crave the structured environment of school. Structure is safe and unstructured time and activity is unpredictable. I suppose Pete deep down knew he would be spending many hours with the television, no phone calls to friends or contact with others. I hope I am wrong.



I’ll send him a postcard or two to let him know he is not alone.

Teacher Do You Care- The Pete Chronicles

Today, Pete got a D on a spelling test in another class and an F on last week’s test. He disrupted that class and was sent out several times. When Pete comes to my class, I check in with him to see how his morning went in his other classes. This morning, Pete told me about the poor spelling test. I asked him how he felt about getting a poor grade. He was stared to repeat the cartoon phrases he uses but he stopped to answer me. He said he did not feel good about it. I asked him if it was possible that he interrupted the class because he felt bad about the test. He listened. I reminded him about sharing his feelings and suggested he could share how he felt with his morning teacher. He was willing to do so.

When we went to see his teacher, Pete was nervous and started to repeat the cartoon phrase that brings him solace. I helped him stay clam and he told his teacher how he felt. His teacher quickly dismissed his feelings and gave him a motive of wanting to disrupt the class. Ouch!!! I asked Pete to walk away while I spoke to his teacher.



Do I blame this teacher? No, this teacher represents the cycle of overburden, untrained people. Where is the compassion for this boy?

Go where the love is Pete. He had another great day in my class! We worked on his spelling words together and he practiced expressing his feelings. I’m proud of him.

Teacher Do You Care?

A student in my class has been struggling over the last month. The student (I’ll call him Pete) yells out lines from a cartoon show, coughs excessively, and laughs in a hysterical cartoon voices during instruction. The other students’ educational progress is disrupted. The home teacher for the student tried a couple of things to try to help his behavior in my class. These interventions were not what I would have done and were just as disruptive as the behavior.

I refused the help offered from the other teacher and personally sat down to get to know Pete. I found out more about a young man who spends all of his home time alone. He’s no child; he is a teenager, and he needs interactions with others. He has no friends and no phone calls. His pal is television and the laughs it has to offer.
Pete has not disrupted my class since I took over his behavior problem. One day he was upset about being hot after a morning of PE and not receiving water after he asked once. We should teach him self-advocacy.



Another day he missed a planned activity because of his behavior and he felt bad about it. He does not share his feelings with others. We should teach him how to communicate his needs and desires.

On the last day of the week he was mad at his single mom. Sometimes when I work with students I know God is present because things will come out of my mouth that are inspirational and just what a kid needs to hear. That’s what happened in this situation.

I taught Pete about being grateful and expressing gratitude.
“Have you ever told Mom how much you appreciate everything she does?”
He said, “no.”
“I think you should try it tonight when she comes home,” I suggested.
“Have you ever told Mom you love her?”
“No,” he said.
“I think you should try that too,” I suggested.
Then I mirrored his experience back to him.
“Your mom works long hours, comes home, makes you dinner, makes sure you have a shower and gets you to bed. Those actions are love. Pete you are well taken care of and you are lucky.”



Pete nodded. I don’t know if he got it. I will encourage Pete to live in this world not the cartoon world he has created to connect. I care.

How many Pete’s are struggling in the educational system? If you notice a Pete in your life stop, listen and show you care.

Is Waiting for Superman a Big Business Ploy?

I’m not waiting for Superman. Waiting for Superman, Davis Guggenheim’s new educational film is presently receiving a media blitz. Guggenheim (the son of a documentary filmmaker) funded his film about the perils of the current educational system. In the film, Guggenheim, follows 5 students in their educational journey. According to the Waiting for Superman movie website, ”In spite of their rousing determination and grit, the shocking reality is that most of the film’s touching and funny cast of kids will be barred from a chance at what was once taken for granted: a great American education.” The film breaks up the educational problem into several sections of need: kids, teachers, administrators, unions, schools, states and the nation at large. Inevitably, these kids have one hope of receiving a good education, a lottery system to attend a better public school. The implication that a good education in America today can only take place through a lottery system for specialized schools is simply not true.

I appreciate the attention that the Guggenheim’s movie is giving to education reform, although I do not appreciate the big business media blitz to privatize education. Waiting for Superman is the metaphorical surfboard of big business stakeholders to privatize education for financial gains.

This powerful movement of policymakers superimposing structure to the educational system started back in the 1980s. Nicholas Lemann stated in a 1997 issue of Atlantic Monthly that in the 1980s “the idea of raising standards in public education emerged as a national cause.” In 1983 the National Council for Excellence in Education commissioned by the Reagan administration produced a report, A Nation at Risk. This report identified a national education crisis and recommended nationwide administration of standardized testing by states and the local educational systems. The use of the testing data was to better diagnose and evaluate student progress. “The view in the education world (was) that politicians never before tried to dictate specific teaching methods to this extent,”(Lemann, 1997).

With standardized testing came the creation of businesses to produce the books and products for the schools to utilize to accomplish their testing goals. Today, educational concerns are many. For over twenty-five years, big business has been riding on the backs of policymakers’ decisions in the field of education.

The standardized testing market is reportedly a $400 million to $700 million annual business that is largely controlled by three publishers (Harcourt Educational Measurement, CTB McGraw-Hill, and Riverside Publishing, a Houghton Mifflin company) and one scoring firm (NCS Pearson). A unified flow of substance and dollars runs directly from policymakers to textbook companies, leaving school districts with virtually no options. The few options available to districts for purchase and to teachers and students for use are dictated by the same policymakers and companies.

The great hope of America’s youth does not lie in privatizing the public school system, because that benefits the same big business conglomerates, not the students. Waiting for Superman and all of the attention it is receiving directly benefit the movement to privatize education.

In contrast, Race to Nowhere, a student-centered documentary, was made on a shoestring budget of $200,000 dollars. Director Vickie Abeles painted the picture of how today’s youth are struggling in the current system and how a collaborative effort of students, parents, teachers, administrators and community leaders is needed to problem-solve the needs of the today’s kids. The movement to privatize education does not directly benefit from such a collaborative approach.

The message of Race to Nowhere is not implying that a new private educational system is needed for kids to be healthy, happy and whole. The student-centered educational message of Race to Nowhere has been ignored by the media. An Internet search of Waiting for Superman yields 944,000 results, while a search of Race To Nowhere yields only 77,200 results. Why has Race to Nowhere gotten little to no attention from major media sources when compared to Waiting for Superman? It is simple; Waiting for Superman is a movie that has a villain and a quick fix provided big business, while Race to Nowhere calls for a collaborative movement of communities.

Big business will not make any money on students, parents, teachers, administrators and community leaders collaborating for a healthier happier educational system. A fear monger message of a poor kid in the Bronx that can not seem to receive an education unless a private system is created beats the path toward a money making venture.

I’m not waiting for Superman and neither is any kid in our country. What we are waiting for is a grassroots collaborative effort that really puts kids first instead of using them to fuel big business profits.

Colleges Remediate-We Are In a Race To Nowhere

The New York Times reported that City University of New York is not providing higher education but remediation. This is not a shock. Education is currently based on state testing. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, increased the role of the federal government in public education and also expanded the role of standardized testing. These alleged benefits of standardized testing permeate the public educational system causing harm to students, teachers and the future of public education as a whole. Colleges offer remedial, developmental and basic courses.

According to the California Department of Education, the purpose of standardized testing is “to measure how well students are learning the knowledge and skills identified in California’s content standards.” In addition, standardized testing results will assist with focusing curricular instruction and organizing teaching methods. The goals of standardized testing seem to be falling short; instead of measuring student knowledge and focusing instruction and methods, the rigor of testing seems to be a silent erosion of our school system.

According to the California Department of Education website’s data for July of 2008, 13, 237 students took the Math portion of the California Exit Exam and 13, 373 students took the English portion of the exam. 29% of the students passed the Math and 30% passed the English portions of the test for the state. When we superimpose the same standards on every student, teacher and school, we receive results that are disappointing—a race to nowhere.

These disappointing results are rooted in non-profit school communities maintaining for-profit activities, i.e., test scores. Data has become the catch phrase and teacher’s names are associated directly with their student’s scores. Improvement has been demanded on the back of a shocked system, and therefore an increase of assessments and pacing guides has followed. This increase of standardized testing is big business for the private sector.

Now colleges are feeling the results of a broken system. The documentary, "Race To Nowhere", chronicles the culture of today’s youth in public school. According to the documentary, the epidemic of standardized testing has produced a culture for cheating, disengaging students, stress-related illness, depression, burnout, and of compromised young adults seemingly unprepared and uninspired for the future.

Each community can stop the the “Race to Nowhere" by challenging the current system. This documentary is showing all over the the country, go see it. Spread the news to educators, parents, students and your community. Join the "Race to Nowhere" Facebook Page in your area. This is the link for the Los Angeles page. If a page or community group is not available for your area, start one. Let’s continue a dialogue to examine the facts regarding our educational system and make it our own again.

Stanley Greenspan: Inspiration for an Educational Revolution

May 3rd 2010

Dr. Stanley Greenspan died this week; he was a great man. His official webpage described him as: “Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D., is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School and Chairman of the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders. The world’s foremost authority on clinical work with infants and young children with developmental and emotional problems, his work has guided parents, professionals and researchers all over the world.”

Dr. Greenspan taught me new ways to teach struggling students. I first met him six years ago when a parent suggested his training course. When I heard him teach the Developmental Individual-difference Relationship Model (DIR), bells and whistles went off in my head on how to teach non-typical learners. His model examines the student in the areas of home life, biomedical profile, sensory profile, and emotional development. This model gave me the additional inroads to students and knowledge of how and when to offer new areas of support. I used Dr. Greenspan’s work as a framework for teaching. This was the beginning of my educational revolution.

When I call for an educational revolution, I am not proposing that teachers know every aspect of a student’s home life, biomedical profile, sensory profile, and emotional development. What I am stating is that creating a relationship with your students and having some knowledge of their home life is important in building educational success primarily with low achieving and struggling learners. The fact that a student chews on his or her pencil or gets up ten times to throw out a piece of paper provides information about how calm their body is or is not in the educational setting. If a student is not creating ideas independently, he or she could have challenges in emotional development. With the use of this model, test scores and lives will flip in a positive direction.


This is the first line of defense I choose to fight, teaching struggling students how to engage learning to be successful well-rounded citizens. For example, three families contacted me in the last two weeks to ask for help with their children’s education in public school. One was an AP student with auditory processing, another an Asperger’s student with an accommodation (504) plan and lastly, a student who left public school for private school only to find out he was not understood there either. The tools I learned from Dr. Greenspan assisted these struggling learners in ways others tools did not. Regardless of the area of educational reform (privatization, standardized test scores, disempowerment of teachers, or corporate influence) the struggling learner is demanding our attention, and focusing on the struggling learner is necessary to make change.

It's a Wonder I Stayed In Public Education!

When I was a new teacher, I wanted to find the key to unlocking success within my students. My desire was to teach them how to become learners. So, I start breaking down the parameters on how students learn. I wanted to know where my students fell off the beam.

Starting with the psychologist, I asked questions. I wanted to know what could I do in the classroom for the processing deficits of my students. I received blah, blah answers that sounded like the teacher’s voice on Charlie Brown.

I was not satisfied, somewhere, someone was trying to lessen these problem for challenged learners; I wanted to be part of the solution. I still needed to learn more about everything, I found educational areas of innovation and best practice. I turned no idea down I was open to learning.

This upset some of my colleagues. Why? I have no idea. Rocking the boat. Doing too much.
Of course, when I wanted to create, utilize innovation and attend conferences or workshops I had to go to the ADMINISTRATION. The administration makes decisions about taking time off work, what fund a substitute teacher’s pay is allocated and registration fees before attendance or implementation takes place. Like Hollywood, I have to go pitch my idea and plan of action. Well, I’ve had some pitches go well and some let’s just say you be the judge.

I've been told many things throughout the years. Here are a few are actual statements from ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF:
• That's great, we don't have money for that
• That's great, ask Title I to pay for it
• Ok we will pay your sub but not the conference, hotel, material, etc
• Sorry there is no money
• Why are you doing this?

With these kinds of responses it’s a wonder why I continued on. I did continue on and over 90% of my training and expertise in education has come from my own resources. Yes, my own pocket. The school system did not care how much of my own money I spent as long as they were not spending it. Here’s a question for you. How many teachers today are updated on best practices in education?

Not many. If the teacher is waiting for the school to pay, they can keep waiting. Don’t believe me ask your kid’s teacher the last conference, innovative lecture or new software training they have been to. The answer won’t be pretty in public school. How can we be better if we don’t use better tools and paradigms? Learn the learner; know the learner, teach the learners.

School Kids Can't Read!

“We’re not asking them to read nearly enough,” Ms. Pimentel said, an expert on English and reading standards who is a member of the National Assessment Governing Board that oversees the test that showed little to no growth in the area of reading.

Really? I am wondering how long Ms. Pimentel has been inside of the classroom teaching struggling readers. I have been in the classroom working with struggling learners and readers for 15 years. I don’t agree with Ms. Pimentel.

According to the New York Times, “The nation’s schoolchildren have made little or no progress in reading proficiency in recent years, according to results released Wednesday from the largest nationwide reading test. The scores continue a 17-year trend of sluggish achievement in reading that contrasts with substantial gains in mathematics during roughly the same period.”


As I watch students struggle in high school with decoding, vocabulary, comprehension, spelling and writing, a few things come to mind. Let’s take John, for instance he does not know how to spell words that are not phonic or words that you cannot sound out. Therefore, he is embarrassed about his spelling and does not write. How did he get like this? It’s not just lack of instruction or directions that cause this kind of remediation. I have said before that students need developmental, social emotional and physical support to learn. Where did we fall short for John? Somewhere down the road, John did not get what he needed to continue growing.


We have to get away from this one fix show of education. It is not a one trick pony it is a system. My friend told me the other day that the educational system is not to teach the mass but to offer what is offered. Whoever gets it gets it and whoever doesn’t doesn't. So, according to his logic the ones who did not get it recycle into no man’s land?

I say NO! Our children can learn if given the instruction, environment and developmental pieces necessary. I have done it and so can the next guy. Students will make gains if given what they need to learn.

We can continue to have another 17 year studies that does not tell us any causality or start using common sense to teach the child not he standard. If we do this students will improve because we will give them the needed support to improve.

Join the Educational Revolution!

I consider myself an Education Reformer. Through the years I have tried to reform education from the inside out. It has not worked. What makes me so smart, nothing really? I think every teacher wants to assist students with learning to the best of their ability. At least that is my deepest desire, to assist kids that struggled to overcome their challenges. Which in turn, produces more well-rounded, self-sufficient, educated people as citizens for our county. Does this seem far-fetched?

This is my general premise as per my paper, The Multi-Sensory Classroom (Aug. 2004):
“Each child develops sensory/motor preskills at a very young age (e.g., auditory processing, fine and gross motor skills, visual perception, reflexes, tactile processing, sensory modulation). These bottom levels of sensory/motor development are often taken for granted because they are basic and develop automatically in the typically developing child. When we teach a student at school, the child uses these sensory/motor preskills as a foundation for learning. Children in whom these preskills have not fully developed find learning difficult if not impossible; they become our struggling or special-needs children. Without the appropriate developmental foundation, they cannot build the abstract thinking skills we try to teach them in school. “
Therefore, students may struggle in an educational setting and it may not be obviously apparent why the struggle exists.

So here’s my beef. Many students receive the necessary tools to overcome struggles in public education by the support of parents, teachers and interventions. There are a great number of students who do not receive additional support for whatever reason. This fact needs to change very rapidly.

Case in point, let’s examines the test scores for the high school exit exam for California. According to the California Department of Education website’s data for July of 2008, 13, 237 students took the Math portion of the California Exit Exam and 13, 373 students took the English portion of the exam. 29% of the students passed the Math and 30% passed the English portions of the test for the state. That means that 9,423 students failed the Math and 9,420 failed the English! Holy Smoke!

I cannot be the only one screaming in the wildness. Where are you? Please don’t give me the spill about more qualified teachers and incentives. In today’s, New York Times, Week in Review section on page 5 there is an advertisement from the President of America Federation of Teachers. The name of the article which is really an advertisement is called, “ What Matters Most: Words into Action”. In the ad-like article the president, Randi Weingarten explains this problem in education, “ For too long and too often, teacher evaluation –in both design and implementation – has failed to achieve what must be our goal: continuously improving and informing teaching so as to better education all students”. She goes on to give an example from Colorado of the school board and teacher union working together. Then at the end she says that school board members, teachers, union leaders all feel the same way, they want what’s best for the kids. I felt the article was about working relationships in these difficult financial times. Maybe that needs to be the focus for the advertisement that educational higher ups and teacher unions do not need to eat each other alive so they can eventually help kids. Although our students are failing right now and I don’t want any kid to miss several years of learning because people who make a lot of money can’t get along. We are talking about kid’s futures here. Give me a break!

I’m tired of the Infomercial Education. The kind that keeps promising that magic ellixir yet, the product is just so-so. The real conversation needs to be around the individual differences of students or their learning styles and needs. Administrators, school boards, teachers and all school staff members need to be trained in how to recognize a struggling student’s needs: emotionally, developmentally and physically. They also need to know how to build or recognize curriculum for these needs and drive the curriculum based on assessment data, not a hunch or a feeling. I’m not saying that public education can fix it all and is a one-stop shop. But let’s be honest students come to school with all of these issues and as a whole we cannot ignore the numbers. Our students in this state are not making the cut. Our interventions are not making the cut. Identifying student’s needs are not based on each student’s individual differences or assessments yet blanket interventions are thrown on major problems.
So, we need an Educational Revolution…stay tuned how to join the fight.