ESSA and implementing a multi-tiered system of support for success

A large part of student success stems from the efforts of educators to provide the same standards, resources, and support to all learners. If some students received every support possible while others only received half of this, that wouldn’t be a fair system.

The Every Student Succeeds Act supports this idea by ensuring systems and resources are in place throughout school districts to provide learners with everything necessary to become successful in the world.

In this blog, I’ll explore the impact of the law with regard to multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) and the steps that districts should take to ensure successful implementation.

What is ESSA?

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed into law on December 10, 2015, and is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). ESEA represents the nation’s long-standing commitment to equal opportunity for all students. The newer law, ESSA, builds on key areas of progress and allows districts more discretion for developing, implementing, and evaluating effective school and schooling processes.

The Every Student Succeeds Act:

• Advances equity by upholding critical protections for disadvantaged and high-need students.
• Requires students to be taught to high academic standards that will prepare them for success in college and careers.
• Ensures vital information is provided to educators, families, students, and communities through annual statewide assessments.
• Helps support and grow local innovations.
• Sustains and expands investments in increasing access to high-quality preschool.
• Maintains an expectation that there will be accountability and action to effect positive change in low-performing schools.

The requirements of ESSA

Particularly germane to our current discussion are several requirements in the ESSA legislation that require districts to engage in a variety of best practices. Specifically, districts must:

1. Provide “for a multi-tier system of support (MTSS) for literacy services,” as well as for specific groups of students such as at-risk, disengaged, unmotivated, unresponsive, underperforming, or consistently unsuccessful students.
2. Provide “a comprehensive continuum of evidence-based, systematic practices to support a rapid response to a student’s needs, with regular observation to facilitate data-based instructional decision making.”
3. Institute “positive behavioral interventions and supports.”
4. Provide services, programs, strategies, and interventions to ensure that students with disabilities, developmental delays, who are English learners, and who are struggling with literacy can meet state academic standards.

How is MTSS relevant to ESSA?

The Every Student Succeeds Act prioritizes the need for expanded access to comprehensive school services within an MTSS. Because MTSS is an evidence-based framework for effectively integrating multiple systems and services to address students’ academic achievement and behavioral and social-emotional well-being, it is a beneficial tool for districts to utilize.

A multi-tiered system of support has the goals of:

• Improving outcomes for all students.
• Improving instruction and alignment of curriculum across both general and special education.
• Improving school climate and safety.
• Creating a safe and supportive learning environment.
• Supporting students’ mental and behavioral health.
• Implementing effective discipline policies.

Is MTSS required by law?

It is significant that the term “Response to Intervention” (RtI) never appears in the ESSA legislation. Additionally, the phrase “multi-tiered system of support” is always listed in lowercase letters, indicating that the specific MTSS framework advocated by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) is not mandated by federal law. This allows states and districts to implement their own MTSS models.

However, ESSA does specify that robust multi-tiered services should include social, emotional, and behavioral performance. The use of “positive behavioral intervention and support” is mentioned three times in the law but is not defined. Like multi-tiered systems of support, the capitalized term Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS) never appears in the law, indicating that districts are not necessarily required to implement the OSEP PBIS framework.

The flaws of federal MTSS and RtI efforts

Multiple reports have demonstrated that the federal RtI and MTSS frameworks have not been entirely successful. Why have well-meaning efforts not resulted in improved student outcomes? Too often, these frameworks:

• Miss the interdependency between academics and behavior.
• Avoid diagnostic or functional assessment until it is too late.
• Do not adequately link assessment to intervention.
• Establish overly rigid rules on students’ access to more intensive services.

Often, these flaws have been exacerbated by one important weakness in local school districts: inadequate organizational and foundational systems to deliver on the promise of MTSS. These inadequate systems fall into three general categories:

#1: Lack of a comprehensive assessment system

Too often, districts lack a comprehensive and balanced assessment system. Most districts are using some type of assessment to support universal screening of academic performance on an annual basis. However, a high percentage do not have the other critical components that comprise a robust assessment program in place.

A comprehensive and balanced assessment program will include valid and reliable tools that are applied strategically in four assessment domains: universal screening, progress monitoring, standards-based interim assessments, and diagnostic assessments. These specific tools will vary as needed by grade level and should be delivered in literacy and math.

#2: Lack of SEB screening and supports

Many districts also have inadequate assessment of social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) competencies and mental health screening. Districts generally have not approached the assessment of SEB as they have academics within an MTSS mindset, often skewing early identification procedures.

#3: Lack of MTSS collaboration and tracking

Finally, many districts do not have the right software and systems to support these critical MTSS infrastructure components:

• A view of student performance in an accessible format that supports the work of intervention teams in terms of early identification screening, early warning, and progress monitoring data.
• Triangulation of data to understand the interdependency of academic, behavioral, social, health, and attendance factors.
• Deeply analyzing student behavior incidents across multiple domains such as locations, times, classrooms, and responses to infractions.
• Documentation and purpose-driven forms to support a research-based problem-solving approach that underlies root cause analysis and leads to more effective intervention design.
• Analyzing and documenting intervention integrity and fidelity.
• Creating meeting agendas and task notifications.
• Analyzing programs to determine efficacy.

10 key practices to include in MTSS re-design

The National Association of School Psychologists has published a position paper outlining several essential practices to help achieve the promise of MTSS and ESSA. In the following list, I’ve included additional key practices to address the systematic flaws and organizational limitations mentioned in the previous section.

Practice 1: Effective, coordinated use of data that informs instruction, student and school outcomes, and school accountability. Schools should collect, integrate, and interpret relevant data that captures the most important indicators of key outcomes at the student and system levels.

Practice 2: Purchase and maintain a formative assessment software system. This formative assessment software system will help districts to deliver on Practice 1. Standards-based formative, interim, summative, and diagnostic assessments are linked to standards grading and report cards. This system will also drive the work of PLCs in their ongoing instructional decision-making cycle.

Practice 3: Purchase and maintain a comprehensive data software system. This system will help to deliver on both Practice 1 and the MTSS infrastructure. Data Visualization, problem-solving intervention design system, program evaluation, student learning objectives, behavioral analysis, data walls, and meetings management should all be included.

Practice 4: Implement a quality universal screening and progress monitoring assessment platform. Computer-adaptive assessments with built-in curriculum-based measurement and progress monitoring capabilities will deliver key aspects of a comprehensive balanced assessment system.

Practice 5: Comprehensive and rigorous curricula should be provided to all students. All students should have access to a rigorous, culturally-responsive, high-quality balanced curriculum and have high expectations for achievement. Schools should also teach and hold students accountable for critical life skills such as social-emotional competence, self-control, problem-solving, and conflict resolution.

Practice 6: Effective coordination of services across systems and within schools. Schools should provide regular opportunities for peer-to-peer consultation focused on problem-solving, assessment, and intervention among teachers, principals, and other specialized instructional support personnel. Schools should also commit to increasing family engagement and supportive relationships between students and caring adults within the school and the community.

Practice 7: Provision of evidence-based comprehensive learning supports. Resources, strategies, and practices that provide the physical, social, emotional, and intellectual supports that directly address the barriers to learning and teaching, and that re-engage disconnected students, should be provided.

Practice 8: Integration of comprehensive mental and behavioral health services into learning supports. Access to school-based mental health services, particularly when embedded within an MTSS framework, is linked to improved student physical and psychological safety and reduces costly negative outcomes such as risky behaviors, disciplinary incidents, delinquency, dropout, substance abuse, and involvement with the criminal justice system.

Practice 9: Integration of school climate and safety efforts into school involvement efforts. Schools enable teachers’ ability to teach and student’s ability to learn when we ensure that all students:

1. Come to school feeling safe, welcomed, and respected.
2. Have a trusting relationship with at least one adult in the school.
3. Understand clear academic and behavioral expectations.
4. See their role as positive members of the school community.

Practice 10: Provision of high-quality, relevant professional development. All school staff have access to continuous job-embedded professional development that improves their capacity to address the unique needs of the school community and its students. Districts should consider engaging experts in MTSS to guide successful implementation. These professional services should be long-term, because all the necessary components can take several years to implement.

Renaissance: Providing tools and resources to help integrate the MTSS framework to support ESSA

The ESSA legislation and its mandate to implement a multi-tiered system of support hold great promise to positively impact student outcomes. By systematically instituting these ten essential practices, districts can improve student outcomes with regard to both academic achievement and social-emotional behavior.

How is this possible? By utilizing the MTSS framework and the many resources provided by Renaissance. Renaissance provides tools for…

• Universal screening
• Progress monitoring
• Diagnostic assessments
• MTSS interventions and collaboration
• SEB assessments

…and much more.

Connect with an expert today to learn more about Renaissance solutions for effective MTSS.