Stop the Bleeding: The Vicious Cycle of Interventions in STEM

Justin Luttrell, Ed.D., Director of STEM and Blended Learning, Pulaski County Special School District

We have often heard the saying, “Insanity is doing the  same thing over and over again expecting different  results.” As educational leaders, we often quote  Einstein’s epiphany to navigate the change process or  invoke a sense of urgency among our colleagues and  staff. In many cases, we are fundamentally sound in our  approach. However, what if the change and urgency we  are producing is the very insanity we have just  described? 

A recent Seattle Times article posited that the average U.S. student is 0.5 years behind in mathematics. For science, the LA Times has reported that 40% of all U.S. seniors are below grade-level expectations. Though these numbers are staggering, they may only be touching the tip of the iceberg as we find ourselves on the other side of the most significant pandemic seen in our lifetime. To put it bluntly, a majority of students across our nation are hemorrhaging when it comes to achievement and performance in the STEM fields. The writing has been on the wall for decades, and leaders from all sides of the aisle often come together to create policies, regulations, programs, and initiatives to stop this bleeding of low academic performance. 

As educational leaders, we understand the need to act urgently. Yet, our labors appear to be in vain. So we look to academic interventions to save us from our current plight. Our schools are full of these interventions. We design our master schedules around them. We create entire systems within our districts to respond specifically to the interventions needed to mitigate the gaps in our student performance. We allocate additional resources for interventionist positions within our schools to fully devote their time and efforts to help close the achievement gaps among our students. We spend the majority of our professional development time disaggregating data so that we can group, isolate, and pinpoint exactly where our students are falling behind. Then, we develop our systems to respond to these needs. None of these practices are inherently wrong. In fact, responding to interventions is a key piece of the educational puzzle. As a result, we can often see great growth in our student performances. We 

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celebrate these growths as loudly as we can, championing them across our social media platforms and communicating them to our community members every chance we get. And yet, our overall achievements are waning year after year. How can this be? We have perfected our responses to intervention. Shouldn’t the bleeding have stopped by now? In the medical field, if someone is hemorrhaging, first aid is quickly rendered. The Mayo Clinic provides that in these situations, someone should call for help immediately, find the source of the bleeding, apply pressure stop the flow of blood, and wait for medical help to arrive. In a sense, this is exactly what educators have done. We sounded the alarm of achievement across our schools, districts, states, and nations. We applied pressure to find the source of the bleeding, putting all hands on deck to stop the flow of blood. Then, we waited for help to arrive in the form of programs, interventionists, or state and federal funding. Yet, the patients have yet to recover. Year after year, we continue this vicious cycle. Our performance bleeds; we intervene. It bleeds again. We intervene. Eventually, our students graduate, never fully reaching the benchmarks we have set. But, why is this? We followed the plans. Some even created moral imperatives around the situation, working hard and sacrificing their own selves to stop the bleeding at all costs. 

The reason is simple. We attacked the symptoms but never fixed the sources of the problem. We spent the majority of our time and efforts intervening, but we never corrected the issue causing our patients to hemorrhage in the first place. 

In short, when students are consistently behind in mathematics and science across our schools and nation, our issues are not our inability to intervene. Our failures lie in our inability to fix the core. We cannot intervene ourselves out of a Tier 1 problem. The more energy we spend doing so will only get the same results we have been getting for decades. To reference Einstein again, this is true “insanity.” 

"We create entire systems within our districts to respond specifically to the interventions needed to mitigate the gaps in our student performance."

I have often said that systems generate the results they are designed to generate. The output is exactly what it should be. And if that output is not the desired outcome, there is something within the system causing that output to be. In this case, the system is Tier 1 instruction. So how do we fix our Tier 1 problem in STEM? 

● Recognize our students are learners. Students comply. Learners learn. Shifting our mindset to design every lesson as a learning experience over a series of task compliances is key to delivering effective instruction. We cannot serve all, until we serve each. And each learner comes to us with unique qualities and needs. 

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● Plan, Plan, Plan. Instructional planning has grown into a checklist of 

compliances. And yet, while the plan may check every box on the list, it is forgetting the most important feature of the lesson- the learner. Planning cannot successfully be done in isolation. Professional learning communities should come together and design instruction for the learner. This must be done before interventions. Remember, the goal is to produce a Tier 1 curriculum that stops the bleeding from ever starting. Too often, our schools only use this step after Tier 1 is complete and interventions become the focus. This is backward. 

● Create a systematic, explicit experience that differentiates for learners. Systems of instruction that spend their time wisely on the front end creating explicit experiences for all learners the first time around will spend less time intervening and more time diagnosing the core issues in real time. 

● Protect the Core: Keep the main thing the main thing. If your goal is to teach students how to multiply factors of two-digit numbers, then ensure students are available to receive instruction in multiplying factors of two-digit numbers. Schools have become so accustomed to intervention programs, that their systems will often pull students from the core (where a certified teacher is present) to work on skills often from personnel who are not certified or 

subject-matter experts. We must protect the core- from interventions, services, and interruptions. Learn to serve all students within the Tier 1 instructional experience. Design systems to ensure the highest quality instruction is taking place during the Tier 1 block. 

● Use data in real time. Too often, we use data only to diagnose students after the fact. Learn to use formative assessments frequently and systematically in real time. Before every transition, we should know whether our students are struggling or excelling with the instruction we just delivered. Small groups then become part of the normal Tier I experience, not the intervention block. 

Our students deserve a strong Tier 1 curriculum in STEM. We cannot intervene ourselves out of the problem until we fix the core. Interventions are a necessary first step in saving the life of the patient. But full recovery is not possible until the core issue that caused the bleeding is resolved. Reacting to a problem is far less effective than preventing one. Until we recognize this, our schools will continue the vicious cycle of interventions without ever treating the core, leaving generations of learners without the proper math and science foundational skills needed to be successful in the growing STEM fields.