Teachers cause students to learn. Let’s expand this. Expert teachers use their mastery of instructional strategies and learning to “cause” all students to demonstrate their incremental mastery of significant and enduring knowledge, skills and problem solving strategies and their capacity to become self-learners.

There was a time when other verbs were employed to describe a teacher’s work. Often the verbs were complex and soft. Teachers hope to… Teachers try to … Teachers attempt to … Teachers design lessons that … The verbs were tentative as there was no clear resolution that whatever teachers might do indeed would have definite and predictable results. It always seemed as if “chance” was inferred in the act of teaching. There is a chance that teachers will … Verbs were purposefully tentative just in case students didn’t learn. In fact, the choice of verbiage opened the door for learning failure or some students to learn while others did not.

In today’s public education, “chance” can no longer be tolerated. The chance of failure has real and dire repercussions for a teacher’s employment, a school’s reputation in the era of choice, and a school district’s accountability to its taxpayers and governmental watchdogs.

Today is a new day. We have the force of mandates. No longer is curriculum, including content knowledge, academic skill or problem solving, a local decision. The majority of states adopted the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts and mathematics. Although there is debate regarding the proposed CCSS science standards, it is not likely that local control will be the default. Government is in control. Federal funds are tied to educator effectiveness and dictating that each state use student performance data and “best instructional practices” data to evaluate teachers and their continued employment. No EE means no or lesser funding. Republicans have tightly tied the strands of school performance management and funding with school choice. Soft and tenuous connections between teaching and learning leaves too much to chance and teachers, schools and school districts will not survive on chance.

“Cause” is the appropriate verb to describe teaching and learning. It is affirmative and it is active. Teachers are the agents in moving students from NOT knowing or doing or thinking about something new or different to students actually knowing, doing and thinking about something new or different. Teachers teach and students learn. The connection is causation. Students learn because teachers teach and teachers teach to cause learning. It is difficult to conceive of a better word that describes a purposeful connection between teaching and learning.

Merriam-Webster tells us that cause is a transitive verb meaning “to compel by command, authority, or force.” In almost all usages, cause as a verb is related to a perpetrator of action and to a result of the action. Somebody or something takes an action that results in something new or different. When “cause” is used as a verb something happens.

There is a great list of synonyms that demonstrate this sense of action. They are: beget, breed, bring about, bring on, catalyze, effect, create, do, draw on, effectuate, engender, generate, induce, invoke, make, occasion, produce, prompt, result (in), spawn, translate (into), work, and yield. (Merriam-Webster) These words add color and texture to the image of teaching as an intentional act executed for the purpose of causing learning while maintaining the act of causation.

Attach the power of causation to highly focused teaching strategies prescribed for specific students and learning loses its element of chance. Then, add the persistence of RtI and learning becomes much more certain.

Teachers cause students to learn.

The discussion about public education is blessed and cursed by the fact that most adults in the United States are educated. Let’s investigate several facts regarding this state of affairs.

Fact one is this – most adults have some level of personal experience in a school and their view of education is based on their childhood experiences. On the positive side, this is a good fact. Democracy and a free enterprise economy function best with an educated populace. The nation advanced through the 19th and 20th centuries on the rising wave of the education and training of its workforce. And, the world economy in the 21st century will rest on the quality of education worldwide. Education remains a society’s best investment in its people and it is good to have an educated public.

On the negative side, this is a worrisome fact. Just because a person experienced the student’s perspective of education as a child does not mean that he or she has any insight or wisdom into how today’s educational systems work best. When I was a child, I saw as a child, thought as a child and perceived as a child regarding my experiences as a student. Now, as an adult, I no longer am experiencing public education first-hand, so I cannot automatically say, as an adult, I see as an adult, think as an adult, and perceive as an adult regarding my experiences as a child in school. An adult’s perception of his or her student experiences remain the experiences of their childhood. A child’s school experiences are not adult experiences although most adults overly simplify and summarize their experiences as a school child as if they are as clear as yesterday. They are not.

Current thinking gives great credence to a parent’s right and need to advocate for their child’s education. However, being a parent does not bring an adult any closer to being wise about public education. The wisdom of a parent really is that of two children – their experience as a child plus the experience of their child. Parent wisdom about school is a lot like the advertisement for Holiday Inn Express being a smart choice for the traveling public. “I can be an airplane pilot because I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.” One does not know more about education by being a student; one knows more about being a student.

Back to the facts. Fact two is this – it is very easy and popular today to be a critic of public education. This is very much like a person who drives a car being critical of the condition of local streets. There is a real indignation when the driver who pays taxes for the maintenance of the streets hits a pot hole. Most of the time, the driver is impervious to the street because he does not feel any of its cracks or seams. His car’s suspension and his own sense of a “ride” accept most imperfections in the street’s surfaces. Potholes, however, awake the driver’s criticism of all streets in general, just as a negative report, US math scores do not compete internationally, the high school dropout rate approaches 50% in some urban schools, or a school shooting, awakes the education critic. There is nothing like a pothole or a flash reporting of comparative achievement gaps to get critics’ jaws flapping. Like the seemingly smooth ride on many streets, the daily successes of so many students in so many schools can quickly be forgotten by a glaring statistic or singular event.

As the general public’s judgments about public education are biased by their childhood experiences and their critical eye typically is wagged by glaring statistics and flash events, national policy is further bruised by our governmental leaders’ misunderstanding of the essential and critical element in the quality of student learning – a child’s teacher. Another fact emerges. Fact three – education is not about policy and regulations or about its standards or testing programs. It is is about learning. As a teacher’s purpose is to cause learning, the presence and work of expert teachers is the most important variable in the quality of student learning.

Why, then, do governmental leaders treat teachers as pawns in non-educational political agenda and policy. One rationale for politico-educational game playing is historic. Teachers’ salaries are paid by taxpayers and school tax bills are very significant every January when homeowners receive their annual tax assessment. It is easy to point at teachers as a cause of high taxes or tax increases. Secondly, the tradition in this country is that teachers historically work nine months for relatively low salaries and teachers typically are women. Women work for less and “seasonal” workers should work for even less. Teachers are a caste of public servants.

A second rationale is Republican political-economic policy. Democrats support public education and teacher unions support Democrats. When Democrats are in power, public education is favored. When Republicans are in power, public education is disfavored. Republican governors and legislators find it easy to point at public education as a manipulative for balancing state budgets while punishing Democrats and Democratic support. Wisconsin’s recent history is more than a case in point.

The Wisconsin budget deficit was repaired by the provision of legislated tools given to local expense-strapped school boards. After state allocations to school districts were drastically reduced to balance annual state spending with lower state revenues, school boards were left with a lop-sided proposition – less revenue and continuing and increasing expenses. Concomitant with reduced allocations, the legislature eliminated the scope and power of collective bargaining so school boards were given the tools to slash health care benefits and post-retirement benefits for teachers thus rebalancing local revenues with local expenses. Reduced revenue plus reduced expenses was not a zero sum game. The real reduction was in the scope of local school programming. Diminished school district budgets typically are balanced by reductions of the districts major expense – teacher employment.

The result of the new political-economic policy has been a tremendous turnover in teacher employment. For the most part, a larger number of veteran teachers have left and a smaller number of inexperienced teachers are being hired. Let us return to fact one and two. From the adult perspective, this evolving educational environment is politically and economically reasonable. From their adult perspective with public education, these are the ways in which adults shape and direct the schools which educate their children. It is an adult view of the world and of the public education they think they remember from their childhood.

From the child’s perspective of their school and education, it is adults being adults and not knowing what really matters. A fifth grade child knows fifth grade and only gets one chance at fifth grade. If the music or the reading or the math program in the elementary school is reduced or the experienced teacher is displaced for an inexperienced teacher, the learning of music, reading or math suffers. Interestingly, there is mathematics to this change in learning. It just is not a momentary disruption or gap, it is geometric. As adults, we remember fifth grade as the year of fractions. Fractions and the ability to manipulate fractions are key to the learning of Algebra. Trouble with fractions is trouble with Algebra and trouble with Algebra is trouble with higher mathematics. Trouble with higher mathematics is loss of performance on international tests and that loss of performance yields one more flash report that is critical of public education. On a different scale, a loss of music or arts programming influences future cultural growth. Loss of reading advancement in fifth grade from narratives to greater amounts of technical reading influences future capacity for understanding and inferring the detailed data required of technical careers.

When adults muck around with public education using their adult perspectives of schooling, they have the potential to create significant unforeseen and unintended consequences. There is every reason for adults who have the power to muck around with public education to invest real time to sit in a child’s desk in a local school, to get the feel of being a child learning as a child and a teacher teaching important learning to children. Real time is not the gratuitous hour-long visit to a local school with standing in a doorway listening to sounds of a classroom. It certainly is not adults sharing stories of their childhood experiences of the secondhand experiences of their children. Real time is sitting alongside a child for the continuity of a lesson and observing learning until the child demonstrates the learning objectives. Real time is sitting alongside a teacher who works through the alternative instruction needed to cause all children to learn. Real time is shadowing various children from different socio-economic strata to understand how life outside of school affects learning in school.

Real time is creating an adult understanding of how important Fact One is. All children must be educated. Real time is creating a clearer understanding of Fact Two. The number of successes in public education vastly outnumbers the flash reports and events that form the daily news. Real time is creating a non-political agenda for education regardless of the party in power. The education of the public is not a revenue and expense equation. Education is an investment in the future of people that pays dividends that greatly exceed temporary disparities in multimillion and multi-billion dollar budgets.

Education is about learning and learning is about people, many of whom are children. Education is about quality teaching and teachers who know how to cause children to learn. Adult decisions about education must include more thinking like and on behalf of real children today than about adults making decisions for adults.

“I don’t want to be my heart surgeon’s first patient,” is a way of saying “experts only wanted here.” Perhaps in the circumstance of heart failure in the high plains of Nevada on a road known as “America’s loneliest highway” a rookie heart surgeon would be a first choice. Other than that event, give me expertise every day.

“I don’t want my five year old to be her teacher’s first student,” is a way of saying the same thing about expertise in teaching. And, the lack of expertise in early childhood education may be as deathly for a child as a lack of cardiac expertise for an adult. Consider the dim reality of decades of living with a poorly ignited curiosity or misshapened reading and writing skills or a disinterest in competence. “Cut out my heart and feed it to the dogs.” (Shakespeare In Love, 1998).

Happily, there are expert teachers just as there are expert heart surgeons. Two examples of real people.

Ms. Lucas is the liveliest, most engaging, most informed and the most professionally introspective of teachers. How else could higher level mathematics be the most popular and most productive series of courses in a college preparatory high school? “I teach; therefore, I am,” is her credo. Using her finely tuned Hunteresque (Madeline Hunter) instructional strategies, she frames a lesson both in what students already know and what they are about to learn, presents and models instruction, and works the board using old fashioned chalk with reasoning and logic that turns on student lights of understanding. Then, she flips the responsibility for learning with demanding problems for student resolution. Finally, she grasps a student by his intellectual nose and won’t let go until he properly makes a coherent mathematical statement. Then, another student’s “nose” and another until all students have mastered the lesson. Interestingly, her strongest skill is her listening. For all of her excitement and energy, she can be very quiet as she listens to how a student’s mental processing has led to that student’s resolutions. Then, surgically, she assists the student to strengthen or break down, rebuild and strengthen his mathematical thinking.

Ms. Lucas is an expert because she knows that education is about learning, she knows how to treat students as individual learners needing personalized instruction, and she knows how to make higher mathematics curious and once she has tweaked her students’ curiosity they are committed to learning.

Ms. Thomas caused her Kindergarten children to be excited. Who in their right mind wants to make five year olds more excited than they naturally are? An expert teacher does. Tradition-bound colleagues become tightlipped in Ms. Thomas’ classroom. It appears chaotic. Learning centers on rounds of carpeting overlap one another. There are bins of crayons and pencils and scissors and tape everywhere. Children do not have to search for instruments of creativity. Although she has 14 students there are more than 35 chairs and airbags for children to sit on in different places around the room. Learning is not about sitting in one place doing one thing in unison with others.

She sings when children enter the room each morning. Children sign many of their lessons regarding letter sounds and sight words and early numeracy concepts. Children solo all the time and the class applauds the soloist. “Adam, tell us about the picture you have drawn. Use these four words somewhere in the story you tell us.” Applause. “Katie, pronounce these words. Tell us why the vowel at the end of the word is silent.” Applause.

Ms. Thomas sits on the floor with a cluster of children while other children work at tables or on the floor behind a book case. Without appearing to look, she knows what and how those outside her cluster are doing. In a few minutes, the cluster finishes, she moves to a small chair at a table and a new cluster forms around her. She listens, asks questions, praises, comments and directs and moves on. Hugging is prominently displayed in Ms. Thomas’ classroom. Usually it is a small child running to her, wrapping small arms around her knee, getting a pat on the shoulder or back and then moving toward a learning center that has drawn the child’s curiosity.

First, second and third grade teachers know which of their children were in Ms. Thomas’ Kindergarten. They fidget more than other students, volunteer more, are more verbal and typically demonstrate better reading, writing and arithmetic performances. They still hug, but not as often. And, they sing to themselves.

Ms. Thomas is an expert because her classroom is a display of early childhood development. She incorporates learning inside movement and song and experiences of the moment. She expects and promotes diverse learning needs from her children and acts in ways that celebrate the unusual response. She is the oldest Kindergartener in the classroom.

The quality of teaching in school’s faculty exhibit quite a range of skill sets. At a minimum, there are teachers who are about the work of teaching. But, they do not cause significant learning. They lack the skills of diversification and personalization, a constant focus on significant outcomes, and the pedagogical skills to refine academic understanding and skills until all children are able to perform the targeted outcomes. School leaders know the different capacities of their faculty members. They know who is just teaching and who is causing learning. They also know that a ten year veteran may have no more skills than a first year teacher because there has been no discernible growth in expertise – the tenth year looked just like the first year, good enough for initial employment.

Is there room any longer on the faculty roster for a teacher who cannot cause learning? Given a choice, should a patient in need of heart surgery be provided an expert or a name preceded by Dr.? And, should a child…

School leaders have their pants in a bunch over school choice. Get over it. The world of education is changing and it is not done changing, yet. The school of the future will be the school of choice. Be that school.

School choice was inevitable. No one in our contemporary society likes to be told what to do or that they have no choice. Today, “no choice” is fighting words. Often it does not make any difference that there may be little to no difference in the choices or that what you choose may cost more or that many of the choices may provide less. Choice has been politicized into a fundamental right meaning that choice is good and no choice is politically toxic.

It was not always this way. There was a time when choices were either non-existent or very limited. You can have this or you can have that – you get to choose. Not so much today. Regardless of the subject, try to identify a “thing” for which there only is one choice. My wife just looked up from the bowl of strawberries she was devouring, held up a berry and said “strawberries. A strawberry looks like this, smells like this, and tastes like this. A berry of any other color or taste could not be a strawberry. If you want a strawberry, there is no choice but this!” I would like to agree with her. At that moment, we both wanted her strawberry to be that rare and pure form of simplicity – juicy, red, plump and delicious and the model of what a strawberry should be. Alas, there are 103 species and sub-species of strawberry and choice abounds. With this knowledge, she can now sort through these species and find the perfect strawberry for her. She has choices to make. In fact, to find her perfect strawberry once again she must make choices.

When I was a kid, choice was very selective. Seldom in that long ago day was there something we wanted for which there were no choices. But, choice was a small, closed set of numbers. Gym shoes were PF Flyers or Keds. Later the shoe of choice was a Chuck Taylor Converse and no other shoe would do. Television, if you had one, was tuned to ABC, CBS or NBC. Music was on a radio or record player. Jeans were blue, leather shoes were black or brown, and t-shirts were white. Ice cream was vanilla or chocolate and always hard packed. Mail order was from Sears and Roebuck or Montgomery-Ward and a young boy’s hair was either cut in the “crew” style or worn as a DA. These were our choices.

There was one item for which there was no choice. Your telephone service was Bell. “Ma” Bell or one of her closely tied subs, Northwest Bell for us, was the one and only telephone option.

School also was a no or little choice issue. Countless children had no choice – they attended the school in the neighborhood where their family always had lived. Whether it was a PS school in a borough of New York or the one room school in What Cheer, Iowa, this was the school their parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, and cousins since Noah had attended and it was their school also. School choice lay between the school district and the parish. If not a public school, families tied their child’s education to a Catholic or Lutheran parochial school. A parochial education was not free and the line between church and state was suspended. Uniforms, chapel and Bible study, and several different versions of school discipline accompanied attendance at church school. We had a choice or no choice schools.

Life may not have been austere, but compared with the options we have in the “age of choice” living in the “old days” was black and white. Did choice begin with the “greatest generation” who raised their families in the constantly expanding economy of post-WW2? Did choice blossom with the “baby boomers” who, due to their population bulge, needed more of everything? Did the idea of choice begin with protesting in the 60s and a generational refusal to accept the traditions and the unquestioned authority of their elders? Did the demand for choice come with an affluence bred by the two-income family? More disposable income led to more consumerism which led to more things to consume. Is choice part of “keeping up with the Joneses?” Has the right to choose joined the Bill of Rights?

No and yes to each of these would be a right answer. Whichever reason, choice demands entry into every decision. It was inevitable that how and where a child is educated would become a matter of choice. It also was inevitable after politicians and special interest monies observed that the choice of school could be used as a wedge between partisan voter groups. Our own governor uses school choice to lure the “generation of choice” to his ballot issues. Once school choice moved from a mom and dad decision to the political arena, it was only a matter of time before school choice became a right under the law.

Now that school choice is a legal reality, there only is one course of action left for educators. Certainly, that is not to moan and wail against choice. How futile! The only course of action is to be the best school available to families in your community. School choice is a “field of dreams.” Be the school that fulfills parents’ dreams for how their children will be educated and parents will choose your school. There is a corollary to school choice. Schools that meet and exceed the needs of those who are choosing will succeed; schools that cannot match with the needs of choosing consumers will fail. Matching parental choice with a high quality choice is what will count now and in the future.

At first blush “best” can be very subjective. Best at what? Best at teaching children to score well on academic tests? Best athletic school? Best arts school? Best vocational and technical school? Best overall school? Best virtual school? Best at supporting home-schooled children? Yes. Best can be any of these. Once we accept that parents will be choosing a school for their children, public school leaders can become proactive and use choice to fashion schools that meet parental choice needs. A design may include schools within a school, diploma majors, specialty schools within a school district, or what we always wanted a school to be, a high quality, comprehensive school.

Becoming the best demands focus and focusing a school includes choices. Leaders must choose only the most effective and efficient teachers. Choices must be made in how time and resources are prioritized. Choices must be made regarding what will NOT be in the school program as well as what will be.

So, there you are. School choice includes choices made by public school leaders. Succeed or fail in the age of choice – it is your choice.

“How many times must I repeat this before you will learn it?” I have heard these words thousands of times, sometimes when I was a child in school and many more times as a career educator. Interestingly, “how many times…” always was just a rhetorical statement. No teacher asking such a question ever expected an answer. They really were just warming up before repeating the exact instruction they provided the child earlier. The teacher then would repeat the same instruction, word for word and action for action. Today, the decades of silence after this timeless rhetorical inquiry must end. The answer that teachers have been dying to hear is – “just once more, please.”

Once more is not a magical answer or a silly answer. It is not disrespectful, but actually very respectful. The child’s answer could have been 100 times as well once, but 100 times would be given only to prove the point. “Once” is the best and most effective answer because 100 times would only be 99 repetitions of the first. Once is the logical answer. If the child does not understand what she has been taught after one good and clarifying repetition, then the teacher is off the hook for the moment. Ninety-nine more times will only waste the teacher’s and the child’s time. Never repeat yourself more than once for the purpose teaching an independent lesson to a child. You are a fool if you repeat yourself over and over again.

The more pertinent question is not “how many times must I repeat this” but “how many different ways must I teach this to you before you will learn it?” Now, that is the educatinal question a teacher should ask when a child does not demonstrate that she has learned after the first instruction. Once, however, is not the appropriate response to this real question. The appropriate answer to this more powerful question is – “as many times as you must in order to cause the child to learn.” You may stop this line of teaching only when the child has learned.

Easy. The answer really is quite easy. Yet, it seldom is the answer that teachers make. For all the wrong reasons teachers follow their rhetorical question with “times up. It’s time to move on. Let’s see if you don’t learn this before the grading period is over.” This decision pushes a child along the pathway of learned helplessness, the number one cause of long-term student apathy, academic failure, drop out, and adult helplessness.

Easy remains the right word. When a teacher measures the amount of time required to find new ways of instructing the child at the moment when the child admits not learning against the amount of time needed to teach a child who is sliding down the pathway of learned helplessness, the equation is lopsided. Ten to fifteen minutes versus days, weeks and months. How much time? Just add together the time expended on reteaching/reviewing with a group of “didn’t get it the first time” students, the hours of after school tutorials, the weeks of summer school, and the months of repeating a failed course or repeating a failed grade level and “do it now” is the easy, time efficient, learning effective answer.

So, how do we know that one repetition is enough? Repeat the initial instruction to the child and then ask her to tell you in her own words what she understands about this knowledge or demonstrate the skill or act out the problem solving strategy. Check for her understanding. Do not check for her ability to repeat your words back to you. Check for her comprehension. If she is wrong or inaccurate or cannot actuate the skill or strategy correctly, teach her in a new way. And, don’t stop using your alternative ways of teaching her the same thing until she passes your check of her understanding.

Teach. If necessary, repeat the initial instruction. Check for understanding. If necessary, teach and teach again using alternative instructional strategies – checking for understanding after each alternative instruction. When the child demonstrates understanding stop and join this child with all other children in the class and begin your next instruction.

Then, teach. If necessary, repeat initial instruction. Check for understanding. And so it goes.

Easy. But, oh so hard. How do we know that this is hard? Check these data.

• Two out of three eighth-graders can’t read proficiently and most will never catch up. (NAEP, 2011) (NAEP, 2011)
• Nearly two-thirds of eighth-graders scored below proficient in math. (NAEP, 2011)
• Seventy-five percent of students are not proficient in civics. (NAEP, 2011)
• Nearly three out of four eighth-and 12th-grade students cannot write proficiently. (NAEP, 2012)
• Some 1.1 million American students drop out of school every year. (EPE, 2012)
• For African-American and Hispanic students across the country, dropout rates are close to 40 percent, compared to the national average of 27 percent. (EPE, 2012)

http://broadeducation.org/about/crisis_stats.html

Check for understanding and do not move to new instruction until ALL children have succeeded with their current learning. Teaching until all children are ready for new instruction is time well spent.