Standards Open the Door for Best Practices From Special Ed.

Some instructional approaches associated closely with special education are gaining traction more quickly than ever as more states and districts look to them as the ideal tools to implement the Common Core State Standards.

In particular, two strategies—universal design for learning and response to intervention—are being cited by states in requests for waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act in the section about how they will implement the standards. Those familiar with the techniques say the pairings are logical, and the timing is right.

"To us, it makes perfect sense. With UDL, you really do start with addressing goals that are applicable for all learners," said Patti Ralabate, the director of implementation for the Center for Applied Special Technology in Wakefield, Mass., which helped develop UDL.

Broadly, universal design for learning is an instructional method that involves creating lessons and classroom materials flexible enough to accommodate different learning styles. And response to intervention is an approach intended to provide early identification of students' learning problems paired with the use of focused lessons—interventions—to address those problems before it's too late.

"Without a system to be responsive to student need, we're kind of back where we started with standards: aiming at the middle. There was going to be nothing intrinsically new unless we seized upon an opportunity to make this about every kid," said Emilie Amundson, the assistant director of content and learning for the Wisconsin education department. "We have an opportunity to sell RTI as a process that helps implement the common core as opposed to this thing you do for special ed.-identification or special education."

And because the common-core standards are new, the timing is ...

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