A Framework for Coherence: College and Career Readiness Standards, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, and Educator Effectiveness

(February 2015) | Useful to Parent Centers in SSIP work and in advocacy for systems reform.

Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), such as Response to Intervention (RTI) and Positive Behavioral Supports (PBIS), are crucial to early identification of learning and behavioral challenges and timely intervention for students at risk for poor learning outcomes. When aligned and coherently implemented with other key education reforms (such as college and career readiness standards and educator effectiveness systems), multi-tiered systems of support have the potential to create lasting and meaningful changes to instruction and to provide support for at-risk learners.

In this Special Issues Brief, the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders outlines a framework for coherence that supports states in connecting these three initiatives by capitalizing on their shared goal: improving instructional quality to enhance educational outcomes for students. The framework suggests 3 distinct opportunities to strengthen coherence and alignment across the initiatives:

• Create a shared focus: College and career readiness standards are an opportunity for state education agencies, educators, and education stakeholders to create a shared focus on instruction that helps all students, including those at risk for poor learning outcomes, to achieve college and career readiness.
• Create better instructional supports for students: MTSS offers an instructional framework that creates opportunities for students to access college and career readiness instruction through tiers of services and supports that vary in intensity.
• Create better professional learning supports for teachers: Educator effectiveness systems that provide targeted feedback on standards-based, multi-tiered instruction and create opportunities for professional learning and continuous instructional improvement that drive student growth.

Find the brief here: http://www.gtlcenter.org/sites/default/files/Multi-Tiered_Systems_of_Support.pdf