Wisconsin's Reading Specialists Association (www.wsra.org) is hosting a series of workshops with Peter Johnston of SUNY-Albany and Richard Allington of Univ of TN this summer and through next year. Both are strong critics of RtI, but neither appear to have any direct experience with RtI implementation. You can listen to Allington at: http://www.reading.org/downloads/podcasts/II-Allington.mp3

It's interesting that the strongest criticisms are coming from reading which has been such a political area for so long. I guess it makes sense.

The issues seem to center around use of running records for progress monitoring and the requirement for evidence-based intervention. Wondering what's up in other states/areas.

I'm actually amazed by the lack of expert criticism that I've heard. There's a wealth of practitioner concern centering primarily around time issues and data management. The only expert concern I've faced was regarding implementation. The expert's concern was that practitioners would mire in a series of intervention response cycles and waste valuable time when a quality assessment tool could provide an important diagnosis. I don't view this as a criticism as much as a cautioning to those of us who are developing these systems in our buildings.