From Tiered  Support to Brain-Based Design: A Call to Rethink RTI &  MTSS in Light of Dr.  Jack Naglieri’s Research

A few weeks ago on The  K12 Change Equation  podcast, my cohost Dr.  Mort  Sherman and I interviewed Dr. Jack  Naglieri about his four decades of work measuring how children think, not merely what they know. When the recording ended we looked at each other and said, “We only scraped the surface.” 

This post is our second pass—an invitation to every district leader wrestling with Response to Intervention (RTI), Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), or any other “guaranteed” framework for catching struggling students before they fall. 

Why the Brain Science Matters 

RTI and MTSS were conceived on a simple promise:

1.  Universal screening spots a need.
2. Evidence-based interventions are delivered in tiers.
3.  Progress monitoring confirms growth or signals a referral. 

In theory, elegant. In practice, messy. Fifteen-plus years after RTI’s federal debut, many principals still ask: 

“Which students belong in Tier 2?  
 When do we exit them?  
 What if the data contradicts the lived experience in class?” 

Dr.  Naglieri would push further: “Intervention for what cognitive process?” 
If we don’t know how a student’s brain approaches planning, attention, simultaneous (visual-spatial) and successive (sequence) processing—the four domains in Naglieri’s PASS theory—we can’t match them to the right support. Extra phonics drills won’t solve an attention control challenge; graphic organizers won’t fix a successive processing difficulty. 

Reframing “Neurodivergence” 

We reserve the word  neurodivergent  for a subset of labeled students, yet every brain is wired uniquely. As Dr.  Maria Ott reminds us, leadership (and learning) grow through reflection and feedback. So why limit “brain-based” strategies to special education? What if all teachers saw cognitive variability as the norm and asked, “How will this lesson engage different processing strengths?” 

Five Implications for District Change-Makers 

1. Audit Your RTI / MTSS Assumptions 
   • Current state: Tier placement driven by achievement screens (reading fluency, math facts).  
     
   • Upgrade:  Incorporate cognitive process measures (e.g., the CAS2) that reveal why a student struggles. 
2. Elevate Brain Science in Teacher Prep
   • Universities still devote more credit hours to lesson plan formats than to how memory, attention, and executive function develop. Push your local EPPs—and your PD calendar—to fix that imbalance.
     
3. Shift from Label to Learning Profile 
   • Replace “Johnny has ADHD, Tier 2 behavior plan” with “Johnny’s attention and planning scores lag 1.5  SD; he excels at simultaneous reasoning.” That profile guides both instruction  and  IEP goals. 
     
4. Redesign Tier 1 for Cognitive Diversity 
   • If Tier  1 is truly “guaranteed”—and 80  percent of students should succeed there—build routines that flex across processing styles:
     • Advance organizers for planners 
       
     • Visual models for simultaneous thinkers
       
     • Choral repetition for successive learners
5. Measure What Matters (and Act)
   
   • Data without action breeds compliance fatigue. Use PLC time to analyze  process  data: “Students strong in simultaneous processing thrived in our robotics unit—how do we replicate that elsewhere?” 
     

Leading the Change 

None of this negates legally protected services. Students with disabilities still deserve specialized instruction, accommodations, and inclusive mindsets. But if the only lever we pull is “more of the same, harder and longer,” we’ll keep confusing symptoms with causes and sorting children by test scores instead of cognitive opportunities. 

As systems thinkers, we must: 

• Teach educators the language of the brain. 
• Design classrooms where every learner’s processing strengths are assets. 
•  Reengineer tiered supports to target the real barrier, not the convenient proxy. 

At Education  Elements, we help districts translate research into design—strategic plans, professional learning, and learner-centered models that honor how brains actually grow. Dr.  Naglieri’s work is a reminder that the next frontier of equity isn’t another initiative; it’s a deeper understanding of the learners we already serve. 

Ready to dig deeper? Let’s talk about bringing cognitive science into your MTSS redesign, teacher PD, or strategic planning process. 

Change is inevitable. Learning that sticks is intentional. Let’s build what’s next—together.