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Educational reform is sweeping the country. The adoption and the implementation of the Common Core State Standards in almost every state are meant to transform education. It is intended to update the way schools educate, the way students learn, and to ultimately prepare the nation's next generation for the global workplace. This article will describe the Common Core State Standard initiative and the underlying concerns about the quality of education in the United States as well as the opportunities this reform initiative affords speech-language pathologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responsiveness to intervention ORTI) initiatives have promise for meeting the literacy needs of all students, thereby preventing learning difficulties and school failure. In the authors' school districts in Michigan and Florida, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are participating in RTI initiatives at every level. In some respects, RTI activities already are incorporated into SLPs' curriculum-relevant practices; in other respects, RTI initiatives introduce new roles for SLPs. This article places RTI models and activities in the context of a curriculum-relevant service delivery model and contrasts both with a traditional medical model. Case examples from the authors' districts illustrate how SLPs can play active roles in RTI initiatives and how it is possible to merge new roles with current practices by shifting from a caseload to workload view of time management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]