ABSTRACT
During a recent workshop about response-to-intervention (RTI), one person asked, “I’m a classroom teacher; how will my life be different?” The answer involved a few points, but the first and primary one was that assessment data will actually be used to make decisions about instruction, interventions, and entitlement. Assessment is the key to RTI and to effective instruction in general, but even the most reliable and valid assessment system is meaningless until the data are interpreted and used. Much as how the purpose of the assessment drives the types of data collected, it also drives the types of decisions made and the criteria by which they are made.
