How MTSS Unveils Disproportionality & Makes a Difference

Within MTSS, our goal is to ensure that 100% of our students are provided with Tier 1 quality core instruction, understanding that about 15-20% of our students will need additional support to master their benchmark; this is known as the 80-15-5 triangle. Previously, Dr. Essie Sutton, Director of Learning Science at Branching Minds, described tiering patterns that you should assess. According to Dr. Sutton, here are the best places to start when digging for disproportionality in your data:

• Flipped Pyramid
  Ask yourself: “Do I have a large percentage of students identified as needing Tier 2 and Tier 3 support; greater than 15% to 20% of my population?” If you drew a representation to match your data, would it look like your triangle was flipped so that it was heaviest at Tier 3 needs or more students demonstrating Tier 2 needs? When this happens, it highlights that our core instruction is not supporting our students and our vulnerable populations become more at risk. This may occur because your core instruction is not meeting the needs of your population.
  
  Core instruction should be designed and differentiated to support your students’ needs based on screener data; this means core instructional practices, strategies, and curriculum may vary from school to school, district to district. It’s crucial to identify this trend, saving time and resources.
  
  ➡️ Related resource: How to Respond to an Upside Down MTSS Tiered Triangle
  
  
• Students Moving up in Tier Level
  Interventions and support plans should move students toward independence and success. Monitor your data for all patterns of tier movement. Look at the number of students with higher levels of needs after receiving interventions; this may mean that the quality or fidelity of interventions is lacking. Within tier movement, assess that your interventions support vulnerable groups at the same rate as their peers.
  
  If you find that vulnerable populations respond less to Tier 2 interventions and consistently need intensified support, address these trends by revising your support plans, intervention selections, group size, or dosage of the intervention, or even consider implementation fidelity.
  
• Demographic Differences Under the Surface Disproportionalities
  Your data may represent the 80-15-5 model or something close to this. However, it’s crucial to interrogate your triangle within your tiers for vulnerable populations regardless of meeting the criteria for 80-15-5. It’s vital to be sure that your core instruction supports ALL students; and that all students receive responsive support and interventions.
  
  ➡️ Related resource: A Quick Review of MTSS Supports, Interventions, and Accommodations

IDEA provides a calculation to monitor disproportionality within schools and districts (Office of Special Education Programs, 2017). Let’s take a look at a simple example of calculating disproportionality.

**This calculation is derived from IDEA Part B methodology considering disproportionality in special education identification and has been furthered in Indicators 4a. And 4b.; disproportionality and over-representation of out-of-school suspensions for Students with Disabilities.

Disproportionate data is a red flag, a warning indicator, that our practices or system is not supporting all of our students. When we uncover this red flag, dig deeper to identify the root cause and ensure we make adjustments to our practice.

How Do We Make a Difference When We are Faced with Disproportionate Data?      

Identifying disproportionate data is an excellent start in ensuring your MTSS practice is equitably serving your students. So what do we do when we identify disproportionate data? Our goal is to identify the root cause and take action. With the students at the center of our decision-making, we must ensure a complete support system that wraps around our students. We’ve organized the best practices for addressing disproportionate data into three essential categories in making long-term changes to your MTSS. 

• Commitment to Achieving a High Fidelity, Data-Driven MTSS Practice
  • Employ evidence-based, differentiated core instruction that includes universally designed supports. Furthermore, include explicit teaching through culturally and linguistically responsive texts and strategies. You can find strategies like this within the Branching Minds Library of Supports or visit What Works Clearinghouse.
  • Adopt a system for universally screening students that will help you identify students’ levels of academic and non-academic needs.
  • Develop support plans based on the level of student need and consistently monitor students’ progress toward meeting their anticipated goals.
  • As students meet their goals or gaps widen, adjust the plan based on student response and need. Consistently ensure that interventions are research-based and implemented with fidelity.

• Address Your Master Schedule 
  • It has been said that “[the master schedule] reveals the true beliefs, attitudes, values, and priorities of the school. It is the window to the soul of the school,” (McCart & Miller, 2020). Disproportionalities exist within our systems when students are not provided with the tools or access to succeed. Identify your needs, identify your resources, and ensure your goals align with your schedule. As a leader, understand that your master schedule is not a static structure but a variable that can change in response to students’ needs. 
  • Developing a flexible, student-centered master schedule can be daunting. With an equitable MTSS; engineer your schedule by answering the following questions (McCart & Miller):
    • What do you want for your students?
    • What are your students’ needs?
    • What is your reality, i.e., what monetary, personnel, curricular, etc., resources are available?
    • What are your strengths?

Be thoughtful that your structural set-up promotes equitable access; for example, refrain from identifying wings or floors for specific student groups to integrate and encourage high achievement across campus. 

• Consistently Assess Equity Within Tier Movement and Be Deliberate About Ensuring All Means All Within Your MTSS

• • Remove labels that reinforce lower expectations. Seeds are planted when we identify students as lazy, underperforming, low-achieving, bad, even hyper. We begin to develop perceptions of students with whom we associate these labels; these perceptions spread like wildfire to our colleagues, other students, and the labeled student. 
  • Labeling students with these descriptors prevents us from employing data-based decision-making when problem-solving students’ diverse needs; instead, we focus on our perceptions. Labeling students, formally or informally, place barriers between the student and their learning.
  • Teachers do not communicate high expectations consistently with students who have perceptions of low achievement (Smith et al. 2019). Understand that labels influence our actions as educators and our student’s identity and agency. Though this may be discouraging, use it as a catalyst to break the cycle. Teacher expectations are one of the highest predictors of student achievement; what a testimony of the power and impact of a teacher!
  • The only way to address disproportionality is to bring it to light. Use a non-colorblind approach to monitor student data. This means becoming comfortable addressing and speaking to student groups and their specific data, specifically vulnerable groups like racially and culturally diverse, special education students, and English Learners. Ask yourself, “Do we consider this acceptable performance for ALL students?”

➡️ On-Demand Webinar: Improving the Equity in Personalized Learning through a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) Approach

Final Thoughts 

Ultimately, disproportionalities impact our schoolwide equity goals to expand educational opportunity and improve student outcomes ensuring that all students are provided the academic and social tools to reach their potential regardless of social or cultural factors. As leaders, we are gatekeepers to ensure that our most vulnerable students have documented evidence-based interventions and supports, combined with access to high-quality, culturally relevant instructional materials and practices. 

We can support ALL of our students, through MTSS, by using our data to create a solid infrastructure of support redesigned for equity. Our true challenge is identifying disproportionality and providing deliberate support to our students to ensure sustained growth and acceleration.

---

Citations

Disproportionality in Education. National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2022, from https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources-and-podcasts/diversity-and-social-justice/disproportionality 

Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) | U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2022, from https://www.ed.gov/essa?src=rn 

McCart, A., & Miller, D. (2020). Leading equity-based Mtss for all students. Corwin. 

Methodology studies - achievement gaps: NAEP. Methodology Studies - Achievement Gaps | NAEP. (n.d.). Retrieved December 31, 2021, from https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/gaps/ 

NAEP dashboards - achievement gaps. The Nation's Report Card. (n.d.). Retrieved February 4, 2022, from https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/dashboards/achievement_gaps.aspx 

Office of Special Education Programs | Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services | U.S. Department of Education. (2017, March). Idea part B regulations significant disproportionality. Retrieved February 4, 2022, from https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/significant-disproportionality-qa-03-08-17-2.pdf  

Simon, C. (2021, July 19). How Covid taught America about inequity in Education. Harvard Gazette. Retrieved January 29, 2022, from https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/07/how-covid-taught-america-about-inequity-in-education/

Smith, D., Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2021). Removing Labels, Grades K-12: 40 Techniques to Disrupt Negative Expectations About Students and Schools. Sage Publications.

---

Let us help you build the right team! Branching Minds offers a variety of professional learning opportunities for states, districts, and schools to ensure instructional leaders, specialists, coaches, and teachers are able to implement RTI/MTSS as well as the BRM platform with fidelity and maximizes educators’ efforts to accelerate learning for all students.