IMPROVING STATE MANDATED TEST SCORES BY IMPLEMENTING A RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION PLAN

Abstract

The Response to Intervention (RTI) framework is a tiered method that focuses on prevention and intervention to close academic gaps in students in grades kindergarten through 12th grade. This study focused on how a small school in McMinnville, TN used a color-coded tracking system to analyze RTI data and help close the students’ gaps so that they perform on grade-level. This resulted in the school going from a Tennessee Value Added Assessment System (TVAAS) overall growth score of 1 for the 2016-2017 school year to an overall growth score of a 5 for the 2017-2018 school year. TVAAS scores are determined by assessing students’ progress from year to year as well as their end of year scores on state testing (Tennessee Department of Education, N.D. e). I focused on how well the students did on their end of the year test, TNReady. I compared the number of students in the Below/Approaching level and On-track/Mastered level for the 2016-2017 school year, which was before the tracking system intervention and the 2017-2018 school year, which was after the intervention. I also looked at teacher opinions on why they believe the school was able to make huge gains in their TVAAS scores. I asked questions that related to how the teachers and administration analyzed data before and after the implementation of the color-coded tracking system.