Tessie Rose Bailey, Ph.D., is the Director of the PROGRESS Center and an advisor for the MTSS Center. In addition, she supports states and districts in implementing special education requirements and MTSS/RTI through several other national centers--National Center for Systemic Improvement (NCSI) and National Center on Intensive Interventions (NCII)-- and state contracts. Prior to her current work, she served as university special education faculty member, education consultant, and classroom special education teacher. Dr. Bailey has conducted 100s educational workshops and presentations on effective implementation of MTSS/RTI, secondary MTSS/RTI and transition, special education law, and special education within MTSS/RTI in 46 states. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Utah in special education and post-doctoral work in RTI/MTSS and secondary transition at Lehigh University’s Center for Promoting Research to Practice.