The Center on Response to Intervention at American Institutes for Research (The Center) provides technical assistance to states and districts and builds the capacity of states to assist districts in implementing proven models for RTI/EIS.

Response to intervention(RTI) integrates assessment and intervention within a multi-level prevention system to maximize student achievement and to reduce behavior problems. With RTI, schools identify students at risk for poor learning outcomes, monitor student progress, provide evidence-based interventions and adjust the intensity and nature of those interventions depending on a student’s responsiveness, and identify students with learning disabilities.

The Center’s conception ofscreeninginvolves brief assessments that are valid, reliable, and evidence-based. They are conducted with all students or targeted groups of students to identify students who are at-risk of academic failure and, therefore, likely to need additional or alternative forms of instruction to supplement the conventional general education approach.

The primary goals of this call are to solicit information about existing screening tools; to identify a variety of scientifically-based screening tools; and subsequently, to provide technical assistance to participating states, districts, and schools for successful implementation of them. The submission deadline is November 12th, 2015.

Submissions may be evidence-based screening tools that assess at least one measure of reading or math. In order to be considered for review, the tool must meet the following criteria:

  • Documentation of the tool’s effectiveness must be based on direct evidence[*] rather than indirect evidence.
  • The tool must have the following classification data: specificity, sensitivity, negative predictive power, positive predictive power, and Area Under the Curve (AUC) derived from a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis.
  • The tool’s outcome variable must be a reading measure if it’s a reading screener or a math measure if it’s a math screener.
  • The tool must have at least three months between the screening and the outcome measure.


  1. Obtain a copy of the Standard Protocol forResponse to Intervention Tools: Screeningform through the Center’s website ( or contact the Center.
  1. Center staff will be available to assist as you prepare your submission packet and to answer any questions you may have.
  1. The completed submission protocol must be submitted electronically as a Microsoft Word document. The remainder of the submission packet, which includes required documentation and any supplemental materials, can be submitted to the NCII in several ways:
  2. Attached to an email
  3. On a diskette or a CD-Rom
  4. Hard copy (4 copies of each)

File Formats:The submission protocol must be submitted electronically as a Word document. Acceptable file formats for all other materials include PDF, HTML, word processor, and text.

  1. Submit application packet or make further inquiries to:

Center on Response to Intervention at AIR

American Institutes for Research

201 Jones Rd

Waltham, MA 02451

Julia Casasanto-Ferro

Phone: (781) 373-7002

E-mail:

The TRC review processconsists of the four steps below. For a detailed explanation, visit our website

  1. All submissions will be checked for completeness by the Center staff. Required documentation, including classification data, must accompany the protocol in order to be reviewed by the TRC.
  1. All complete submissions will undergo a review process by the Center’s Technical Review Committee of ten nationally renowned experts onscreening. The Members of the Technical Review Committee areAmy Barth, Hugh Catts, Craig Frisby, Dave Heistad, Tiffany Hogan, John Hosp, Evelyn Johnson, Kristen Ritchey, Mabel Rivera, and Sylvia Linan-Thompson. For further information about the committee members and their roles in the review process, please visit our website.
  1. If presented documents are found to be insufficient, submitters may re-submit their tools for reconsideration after adding information or documents that were missing at their initial submission. This re-submission and re-review will be part of the 2015 review process.Once the review has begun, withdrawal of tools from the process will not be permitted.
  1. Final TRC decisions as to the technical adequacy of submitted tools will be disseminated through the Center to states, districts, schools, and the Center’s partners for implementation.

Providing information and technical assistance to implement RTI programs for students in kindergarten – eighth grade

American Institutes for Research ~ 1000 Thomas Jefferson St. NW ~ Washington, DC 20007

[*]Direct evidence refers to data from a studybased on the tool submitted for evaluation. Studies that use data from the use of another tool, even if it is similar, are considered indirect evidence and will not be considered as adequate evidence for the purposes of this review.