Truths Hidden in Plain View: To Improve Learning, Educators Must First Confront the Truths about How Schools Actually Operate-And Then Respond to Those Realities

If we're trying to fundamentally change how students write, compute, and think, then we're going about it all wrong. While administrators busy themselves with an array of responsibilities and teachers faithfully attend institutes and afterschool workshops to learn the newest techniques, the century-old assign-and-assess method of instruction remains intact: Teachers talk a lot, students listen a lot, teachers grade a lot. To change schools, we must transform that old method into a model of teaching that promotes high-quality interactions between teachers, students, and peers. We must organize subjects in a way that draws students into disciplined approaches to solving contemporary problems. And assignments must be designed to replicate authentic responses to real-world tasks. Unfortunately, schools must respond to the pressure to improve, and accountability mandates cause them to respond in predictable ways. First, they target areas used to measure Adequate Yearly Progress. Reading is their first concern, followed closely by mathematics. When these strategies fail, they target improvement in reading or mathematics for a particular subgroup, especially ethnic or language minorities. And in addition to their efforts to increase reading and math scores, schools set an array of goals, including some that seem a bit capricious. Instead, schools need to concentrate on improving the quality of instruction in all classrooms. Educators need to decide--in substantial detail--what good teaching looks like, and they need to measure their teaching against that yardstick. Teachers need a supportive teacher evaluation system that sets clear standards for performance and promotes teachers' development toward these benchmarks. And administrators need to know what high-quality teaching is in order to know what to look for in hiring, mentoring, supporting, and retaining staff. While schools strive to accelerate learning in the core areas of reading and mathematics, they also need to improve instruction across the curriculum. The research is clear that while the quick fix might lead to transitory gains, an improvement in instructional practices across a school or across an entire system allows schools to boost learning substantially and to sustain that improvement in an environment of high expectations and high performance. However, while this seems obvious, many factors conspire to hide this truth from educators in the schools. Another truth that seems hidden in plain sight is that students will learn only what teachers teach. Again, this seems obvious. But instructional time still is interrupted by numerous diversions, such as announcements on the public address system, students engaged in social conversation, teacher conferring with a colleague in the hall, etc. The more diversions there are, the less students learn. While we're reporting the obvious, we will add a third truth hidden in plain sight. High-quality instruction must include some basic routines, especially situating learning in the essential concepts of the curriculum, reminding students what they have experienced so far, and explaining current and long-term goals to students and how the current activities will prepare them for the future. TRANSFORMING ACCOUNTABILITY A decade of accountability mandates has helped obscure the classroom truths children experience each day. Overcoming this problem requires a fundamental change in how we talk about accountability and how we act on this new conversation. Based on our extensive classroom observations in a variety of schools, we recommend a four-part strategy for transforming the truths in American classrooms. First, educators must stop using business terminology--accountability, quality dashboards, metrics, etc.--to describe what they do in schools. Unlike our counterparts in the business sector, we cannot be certain that stable inputs, outputs, and means of production are a part--nor will ever be a part--of teaching 25 or more students how to read, write, compute, and think well. …