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Teacher Accountability and the Causal Theory of Teaching

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EDUCATIONAL THEORY
Summer 1987, Vol. 37, No. 3
© 1987 by the Boardof Trustees of the University of Illinois

Teacher Accountability and the Causal Theory of

Teaching
By David P. Ericson and Frederick S. Ellett, Jr.

In this most recent epoch of educational reform, the constant and insistent theme is
that of accountability. Confronted with evidence that the schools once more are failing
toeducate theyoung, state after state ispressing for ways tocurb perceived educational
irresponsibility. In assigning blame, there has been finger-pointing in many directions.
But like the fabled roads of the Roman Empire, they all seem ultimately to lead to one
place: the teaching profession.
What is it about the teaching profession that makes it such a convenient target
when things seem to go badly in education? Given that our civic and cultural institutions
are under siege, the structure of our family life apparently threatened, the structures
of authority undermined, and the gap between rich and poor possibly widened, one
might be tempted to locate the source of our educational ills in other places than the
teaching profession. Instead, most legislatures have focused almost entirely on the
teaching profession and related curriculum requirements. (Of course, teacher laxity has
been held responsible for problems with the latter, too.)
We believe there is a rather simple explanation for this focus upon teacher reforms
asthe key toending our educational ills. The explanation highlights a notion embedded
in the commonsense understanding of teaching and even in some prominent philo
sophical analyses of teaching. The notion is that whatever else teaching involves, it
necessarily involves the attempt tobring about learning. Aspart ofa"making something
happen" profession, the teaching "act" and "enterprise" appear necessarily to be
caught up in acausal endeavor. Despite the differences in their recent exchange, Robert
Ennis on the one hand, and Jim Macmillan and Jim Garrison, on the other, all hold
this causal thesis on teaching.1 With the exception of Thomas F. Green, to whom we
shall return, most of the prominent philosophical analyses of teaching maintain, in
variants, the causal thesis. Clearly, too. the causal understanding of teaching motivates
nearly all empirical educational research on teaching. And, finally, it is precisely this
causal thesis that leads legislatures and school districts to focus on the teaching
profession in connection with educational accountability. For if the teaching/learning
situation is causal in nature, it seems easy to draw one of the following conclusions.
If students are not learning, then teachers are failing or else they have not been
teaching at all. In either case, it becomes possible to hold teachers responsible for
their failure to educate the young. Indeed, it seems that the causal thesis of teaching
directly implies that teachers should be held strictly accountable for their students
Correspondence: Both authors. Graduate School of Education, University of California, Los Angeles,
Los Angeles, CA 90024.

1 Robert H. Ennis. "On Causality," Educational Researcher 2. no. 6 (1973): 4-11 and Is
Answering Questions Teaching?" Educational Theory 35. no. 4(1986): 343-48; C. J. B. Macmillan
and James W. Garrison. "An Erotetic Concept of Teaching." Educational Theory 33. nos. 3-4
(1983)-157-67, "Erotetics Revisited," Educational Theory 35, no. 4(1986): 355-62, and An Erotetic
Notion of Causality" (Paper delivered at the Forty-second Annual Meeting of the Philosophy of
Education Society. Montreal. Canada. 13 April 1986. James W. Garrison delivered a version of
this paper under the title "Intentional Causation in Educational Research at the Annual Meeting
of the American Educational Research Association. San Francisco. 20 April 1986).

277 Volume 37, Number 3

278 Educational Theory

learning, or failure to learn.2 Thus, philosophy,educational research, and commonsense

ideas of teaching all help to undergird the teacher accountability movement.
As we shall attempt to show, this version of the causal thesis and its associated
implications require serious modification. Though we, too, maintain a causal theory of
teaching, we intend to establish that it does not follow from a more adequate causal
understandingof teaching that teachers are solelyor even mainly responsible fordismal
educational results. The widespread misconception about teaching is due to (1) an
inappropriate conception of the form of causal relations in understanding the teaching/
learning situation and (2) the omission of the student's role in that situation.
In what follows we shall consider a number of philosophical views on the causal
nature of teaching. In part 1 we review Robert H. Ennis's theory of causality. In parts
2 and 3 we examine the "erotetic" theory of teaching proffered by C. J. B. Macmillan
and James Garrison, as well as the views of Paul J. Dietl and Thomas F. Green. For
a variety of reasons, we shall show whyeachof these accounts, though bearing merit,
is wanting in various ways. In part 3 we shall also put forward our own views of the
teaching/learning situation that builds on the strengths of these other conceptions, but
avoids, we hope, their weaknesses. Finally, in part 4 we shall briefly discuss some
policy issues surrounding teacher accountability.
I.

Robert H. Ennis's mainarticle on causation appearedinthe Educational Researcher.3

As we shall show, his analysis of causal statements implies a direct link between a
teacher's causing learning and a teacher's responsibility. Macmillan and Garrison,
whose workswe consider in parts 2 and 3, have alsobeen influenced by Ennis's views
of causation.
First, after giving a number of examples of Implicitly causal linguistic expressions
such as "bring about," "results in," "contributed to." "affected." etc., Ennis writes,
"Two less obvious examples are taught and teach... ."4 This language yields a few
lines later tothis argument: "The education enterprise attempts tobring about changes
in students. Bringing something about is unavoidably a causal notion. Therefore the
centralthrust of educational researchtaken as a whole must be towardthe establishment
of causal statements."5 Since teaching is aimed atbringing about changes in students,
we can be fairly confident that Ennis does maintain a causal theory of teaching — that
is, that teaching causes learning —even though Ennis never explicitly says so.
Then, after distinguishing between general and specific causal statements,* Ennis
offers the following analysis of specific causal statements:
A person making a specific causal statement of the form 'X caused Y,' (1)

2. The stakes in this issue are far from small. B. Rodman, in "Rating Teachers on Students'
lie cores sParks Furor- L^al Action in St. Louis," Education Week 6. no. 2 (17 September
1986): 1 and 18. reports that the St. Louis Board of Education has begun evaluating teachers on
the basis of student test performance (using a national standardized norm-referenced test and
soon to be implemented criterion-referenced tests). If a given classof students falls below certain
predetermined test levels, then their teachers are to be given "unsatisfactory" ratings An
unsatisfactory" rating automatically earns ateacher "probationary" status (including a pay freeze)
and can lead to eventual dismissal if student test scores fail to improve within one hundred days.
The new School Board policy is currently being challenged in the courts by St. Louis Teacher
Unions. It may be presumed that other school boards are following the case with interest.
3. Ennis, "On Causation."
4. Ibid., 4.
5. Ibid., 4.
6. In ibid.. 7. the distinction he makes between general and specific causal claims is not fully
clear since the two types of test situations for specific causal claims that Ennis cites involve
generalizations. For example, one way of attacking specific causal claims "is by showing that
under relevantly similar conditions the occurrence of something just like X is not followed or
accompanied by something just likeY." Controlled experimentation is the othertest situation cited.

Summer 1987
 Teacher Accountability 279
asserts that, given the other existing conditions, X, a particular thing, was
sufficient to bring about the occurrence of Y. and (2) holds X responsible for
that occurrence. I offer this as a complete analysis, though not a reduction.7
Now several things are interesting about Ennis's account. First of all, he appears to
rule out a priori the possibility of probabilistic causal relations inwhicha cause increases
the probability of the occurrence of the effect, but is not sufficient for its occurrence.
Recently, many philosophers of science, social scientists, and physical scientistis have
pointed to the widespread importance of this conception of causation. In probability
terms it can be roughly stated: 1 > P(Y/X) > 0.9 Although Ennis does reject this notion
with little or no argument, this conception, or more importantly a related conception of
causation, INUP causation, may prove vital in analyzing the teaching/learning situation.
We shall reserve this discussion for part 3.
What we need to concentrate on here, however, is (2), Ennis's "responsibility"
criterion in analyzing causal claims, for it seems to be highly pertinent to teacher
accountability. Indeed, though Ennis only states that "X caused Y" means in part that
we hold X responsible for Y's occurrence, in the causal theory of teaching it takes on
a new meaning. For if teaching causes learning, and if the students fail to learn, then
for Ennis, it would seem, the teacher failed to teach. But since it is the teacher's job
to teach, we may hold the teacher responsible for failing to bring about learning just
as muchas we would say the teacher is responsible ifthe students do learn. (Omissions
and absences can be causes for Ennis; see footnote 7). Thus, Ennis appears to build
teacher accountability into the causal theory of teaching as a result of his general
analysis of causal statements.
Ennis, unfortunately, is very brief in his analysis of "responsibility." At times, he
seems to mean that we hold the cause responsible in its ordinary-language sense of
being "morally, socially, legally, or institutionally answerable for its effect." At other
times, he seems to mean only that, of a number of actual causal conditions, we pick
out one or two "as responsible." Whatever the case, if he means the first, his general
account is false; but if he means the second, then his general account is vacuously
circular.
Concerning the first, it is clear that we do not hold natural processes morally,
legally, socially, or institutionally answerable for their effects. Even in torts, the legal
fiction "act of God" is used to dismiss responsibility. As Hart and Honore succinctly
put it:

We still speak of inanimate or natural causes such as storms, floods, germs,

or the failure of electricity supply as "responsible for" disasters; this mode of
expression, now taken only to mean that they caused the disasters, no doubt
originated in the belief that all that happens is the work of spirits when it is
not that of men. (Our emphasis)9

Now while this normative or legal reading of Ennis's responsibility criterion may be
used nonvacuously to elucidate the meaning of causal statements, it has the obvious
defect of imputing liability to natural phenomena under legal or moral, etc., rules and
so renders such phenomena blameworthy and liable to sanctions. If God or spirits

7. Ibid., our emphasis. Though Ennis callsthe cause "a particular thing" here, elsewhere (p.
5) he is widely tolerant in his causal ontology; beyond Davidsonian events, he admits states of
affairs, acts, processes, and lacks (nonobtaining states of affairs).
8. In Frederick S. Ellett. Jr., and David P. Ericson. "Causal Laws and Laws of Association,"
Nous 19, no. 4 (1985): 537-49, and "Correlation. Partial Correlation, and Causation," Synthase 67
(May 1986): 157-73. we provide a precise rendering and qualification of this notion. We also
canvass the views of a number of philosophers and social scientists who regard it as important.
See also our "An Analysis of Probabilistic Causation in Dichotomous Structures," Synthase 67
(May 1986): 175-93.
9. H. L. A. Hart and A. M. Honore, Causation In the Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1959), 61.

Volume 37, Number 3

 280 Educational Theory

were the causes of such fortune and misfortune, then this reading may have some
merit. It is difficult to see how such an account is to be reconciled with the picture of
a spirit-less nature as given by our contemporary life and natural sciences, however.
And given Ennis's own allegiance to the critical spirit of science, it is further difficult to
believe that he would accept this rendering.
Unfortunately, Ennis suggests that he might accept this rendering. In discussing
the role of value judgments in responsibility ascriptions, he uses the example of
students' being raised in the rural South as causing educational disadvantagement. In
contrast to that conclusion, he argues that "living in the rural South was not really the
cause, but rather a number of features that seemedto go along with living in the rural
South. On this revised view It is these features that are being held responsible, and
thus are candidates for praise and blame, and are recommended intervention points"
(our emphasis).10 The connective "and thus" in this passage suggests that Ennis's
concept of responsibility is logically linked to the ethical/legal concept of responsibility.
Strictly interpreted, therefore, this is a version of the spirits-as-cause view. Elsewhere,
however, he seems to imply that not all "responsibility" ascriptions need orrequire the
assignment of praise or blame.11
Whatever the case, the principle of charity in interpretation can perhaps beinvoked
to conclude that Ennis is guilty of no more than imprecise language here. Therefore,
let us interpret him as holding no version of the spirits-as-cause view. Butif one takes
this interpretation, a major difficulty arises. For if "X caused Y" means (along with the
sufficiency criterion) that we "hold Xresponsible for that occurrence," and if "holding
X responsible for that occurrence" simply means that we pick out X "from a number
ofcausal conditions and [call] it the causer" then the responsibility criterion is patently
and vacuously circular. The responsibility criterion was to be used to elucidate "X
caused Y." But if"holding Xresponsible" merely means "picking out and calling Xthe
cause." then, by substitution, "calling X the cause" does no work in analyzing "X
caused Y." For Ennis has not explicated any of the factors involved in picking out and
naming one of the causal conditions "the cause."18 (The Hart and Honore quote above
makes that very clear as well.)
Given these interpretations, then, the "responsibility" criterion is either false or
vacuously redundant. We shall suggest in part 3. nonetheless, that Ennis's distinction
between "the cause" and various kinds of"partial causes," when suitably reinterpreted,
does have a role to play in discussing the causal theory ofteaching. It issufficient now
tonote that, lacking any other interpretations ofthe "responsibility" criterion, 'causation'
and the ordinary sense of 'responsibility' appear to be wholly independent concepts
This is important to keep in mind as we turn to Macmillan and Garrison's erotetic
theory of teaching, since they appear to rely in crucial places on Ennis's account

In several published articles, C. J. B. Macmillan and James W. Garrison have

developed what they call an "erotetic" theory of teaching.14 In this they are building
upon Jaakko Hintikka's attempt todevelop an erotetic logic of questions and answers-
the logical presuppositions ofquestions and what it is for something tobeadeterminate
answer to a particular question." For Macmillan and Garrison understand the providing
10. Ennis. "On Causality," 10.
11. Ibid.. 11. point 14.
12. Ibid., 7.
/•umI?" Jnwis."5au8^1 Jud9men,s and Causal Explanations." Journal of Philosophy 62. no. 23
hi;!'' Sam"a'Gorovitz presents an analysis of those features (the standards of comparison)
ttiat are involved in singling out one causal factor from among the other causal factors and callinq
LJU8 ,M rSe- G°rov,t2's analVsis shows that it would be extremely misleading to talk about
these singlmg-out features as "holding the factor responsible."
14. Macmillan and Garrison. "An Erotetic Concept ofTeaching." and "Erotetics Revisted"
is. Macmillan and Garrison. "An Erotetic Concept of Teaching."

Summer 1987
 Teacher Accountability 281
ofanswers to the students' questions to be the logically central content of the concept
of teaching, while all else a teacher might do is considered to be peripheral at best
Moreover, in an unpublished paper that was presented in several public symposia.
Macmillan and Garrison connect their erotetic theory of teaching to an "erotetic
conception of causation."16
Asmight besurmised, their erotetic theory ofteaching is preeminently intellectualist
and intentionalist in orientation. As they put it:
It is the intention of teaching acts to answer the questions that the auditor
(student) epistemologically ought to ask, given his intellectual predicaments
with regard to the subject matter. Insofar as these questions can be put in a
clear and unconfused way, the questions will have exact and determinate
semantical (and possibly syntactical) content. Thecorrect answer to a properly
posed question must be couched in the terms within which rt was asked. We
may say..., then, that intentional intellectual acts of teaching hit their marks
when they satisfy the semantical and syntactical demands of the questions
the students epistemologically ought to have asked given their intellectual
predicaments.17

Two aspects oftheir position are important tonote here. First, erotetic logic isconcerned
foremostly with subject matter that yields rather precise semantical and syntactical
conditions of satisfaction. As we shall see, it is not at all clear how it can be applied
to the teaching of subject matter that lacks a determinate semantics (e.g., normative
language, procedural and pragmatic principles, methodology, all of mathematics, to wit:
all that is essentially nonempirical). The second, somewhat related, aspect involves
their apparent dismissal of the pragmatic dimension involved in the relations between
teacher and student. As they write, "It is not that the auditor does ask the question,
or that the teacher believes that he would ask the question, but rather the teacher
believes that in some sense the student ought to ask the question [relative to the
student's intellectual predicament]" (original emphasis).18 Beyond being inanintellectual
predicament, the learner plays a small role in Macmillan and Garrison's theory. In their
view, the central feature of the teaching/learning situation is the teacher's answering
the questions regardless of what the learner does. Pendlebury has questioned this
omission of any mention of other features of the student.19 And in our symposia
responses to Macmillan and Garrison, we have questioned whether it is not a logically
central teaching act to put students into a position in which they are intellectual
perplexed, not merely answer the questions (see also Scheffler).20 In responses to
these questions, Macmillan and Garrison are rather sketchy. They simply assert that
their theory of teaching is both subject and student centered, but they provide no
details.21 And a bit more mysteriously they claim, "There is a place for learning theory
here, but it is a different place from one that puts it logically ahead of teaching."22
It is, however, with Macmillan and Garrison's attempt to develop an erotetic-cum-
causal theory of teaching to serve "as the basis for the empirical study of teaching as
an intentional activity"23 that a rather different pictures emerges. Perhaps anticipating

16. The draft, "An Erotetic Notion of Causality," is intended to appear as a chapter in a book
they are writing on their erotetic theory of teaching.We responded to this paper at both symposia.
Since Macmillan and Garrison are reconsidering some of the ideas of this paper, the full views
attributed to them here may not be current. Still, the direction of their thinking is rather clear.
17. Macmillan and Garrison, "An Erotetic Concept of Teaching," 160.
18. Ibid.. 159.
19. Shirley Pendlebury. 'Teaching: Response and Responsibility," Educational Theory 36, no.
4 (1986): 349-54.
20. Israel Scheffler, "Reflections on Educational Relevance," in his Reason and Teaching
(Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merill, 1973).
21. Macmillan and Garrison, "An Erotetic Notion of Causality." 13.
22. Macmillan and Garrison, "Erotetics Revisted," 356.
23. Macmillan and Garrison, "An Erotetic Notion of Causality," 4.

Volume 37, Number 3

282 Educational Theory

Pendlebury's and our complaint that an essential pragmatic dimension (one which
would mention the students' attitudes and beliefs) is missing in their account, they
attempt to supplement Hintikka's erotetic logic with a salient feature of Ennis's work
on causation.24 Beyond the syntax and semantics of erotetic logic, they introduce a
third "epistemological" or pragmatic condition: "A satisfactory answer mustsatisfy the
questioner and not just the question" (our emphasis).25 Thus, while Hintikka notesthat
a questioner's question (1) "Who lives in that house?" becomes under erotetic trans
formation rules (2) "Bring It about that / know who livesinthat house," Hintikka is really
unconcerned withthe imperative component of "bring itabout." Macmillan and Garrison,
on the other hand, see this component as the foundation for a causal {and erotetic)
theory of teaching. For, following Ennis, (2) above may be rendered as (3) "Cause it
that I know who lives in the house."
Dubbing this a notion of "erotetic causation," they proceed to argue that erotetic
logic and erotetic causality are, nonetheless, scarcely indistinguishable and to show
how erotetic causation differs from the "traditional analysis" of causation.28 In doing
so, they attempt to show not only that the relation between teaching and learning is
an empirical, causal one (suitable for educational researchers), but also that it is a
logical one. Rejecting Hume's insistence that cause and effect must be logically
independent, they arguethat the relation between the answer(cause)and the satisfaction
of the question (effect) is one of logic (semantical and epistemological, not merely
syntactic).27 As they put it, "the [correct] answer must bring about the satisfaction of
the content and epistemological conditions of the question" (original emphasis).20 Thus,
on Macmillan and Garrison's view, the learner is satisfied (a pragmatic issue) when the
teacher satisfies the syntactic and semantic demands of the question. Or in their
terminology, when the teacher correctly answers the question, "the student will
experience the erotetic causal nexus."29
Now it can be made clear how Macmillan and Garrison's erotetic/causal theory of
teaching results in a determinate position on teacher accountability. They do not hesitate
to state that "a complete answer brings about a change in the epistemological state
of the student who epistemologically ought to ask it" (original emphasis).30 Since for
Macmillan and Garrison the logically central task of teaching is to answer the questions,
it is not difficult to see who will be held accountable should the student's epistemological
state not be changed in the requisite way. It will be the teacher's fault. In this, they
approvingly cite Paul Dietl's view that teaching without learning is of logical necessity
a "misfire."31 Going apparently beyond the public's view of teacher accountability, they
avow, "The teacher's responsibility may be broader than ordinarily thought" (our
emphasis).32
Macmillan and Garrison clearly recognize that certain factors "external" to the
teaching tasks may intervene to mitigate the teacher's responsibility. It is interesting to
note, however, how far the "internal" or teacher-related factors extend. In keeping with
their erotetic conception, the primary "internal" factors for teacher failure include the

24. In their reply to Pendlebury. this supplement is missing.

25. Macmillan and Garrison. "An Erotetic Notion of Causality" 9.
26. Ibid.. 13.
27. Ibid.. 27.
28. Ibid.. 13.
29. Ibid.. 15-16.
30. The discerning reader may see that already there are major difficulties in Macmillan and
Garrison's formulation. First, since their account excludes the student actually having or raising
a question, what sense can be given to the notion of satisfying the questioner when there is no
questioner? Second, even if the student poses a question and the teacher answers it completely
(i.e., satisfies the semantical and syntactical demands), no epistemological state of the student
need necessarily be changed. The student may simply not understand the answer or may not
believe it. (We comment on this last point below.) Moreover, it should be noted that in the original
Hintikka discussion, the question, with its imperatival aspect, is addressed to no one in particular.
31. Macmillan and Garrison, "Erotetics Revisted," 358.
32. Ibid., 359.

Summer 1987
 Teacher Accountability 283

teacher's answering the right questions incorrectly, the teacher's answering the wrong
or irrelevant questions, and the teacher's failing to speak to students' epistemological
oughts.33 But they include more, as this passage illustrates:

Bertha, we find, has not been attending to the demonstration of different moves
which constitute swimming and cannot execute them as a result. This is a
failure in teaching, since Albert was not teaching her how to swim [sic); the
teacher's responsibility extends to being aware of and taking care that the
conditions of her getting the material are met. Clara, on the other hand, attends
carefully, but gets a cramp and is paralyzed; she too cannot swim, but it is
not a failure of teaching that makes it so. (Our emphasis except for "her")3*

Now it is not fully clear to us why Macmillan and Garrison extend the teacher's
responsibility to include making sure students attend to the lesson. And since making
sure they attend is obviously not the same as correctly answering the questions, it
scarcely appears to satisfy their criteria for a central (intellectual) teaching act. At best,
in their scheme, it is a candidate for what they call peripheral or strategic teaching
acts. It may be, however, that its inclusion results from a pressure upon their analysis
of the relation between 'teaching' and 'learning.' In taking that relation to be both causal
and logical, once the teacher satisfies the semantical and syntactical conditions of the
question arising from the student's "ought," necessarily the questioner is satisfied too
(an epistemological, pragmatic condition). (But remember, they do not require that the
teacher answer the question a student may or may not have; only the questions the
student ought to have.) To allow, then, a situation in whichthe syntactical and semantical
demands of the question are satisfied, but in which the student fails to learn, is
something necessarily forbidden by their theory. In this way, it becomes imperative that
the teacher be held accountable not merely for answering the questions, but also for
taking care that the epistemological conditions for the student's getting the material
are met.
Unfortunately, this at once undermines their distinction between central (i.e.,
intellectual) and peripheral teaching acts — the very core of their erotetic conception
of teaching. So, in order to preserve that distinction, they might be well advised to limit
the teacher's responsibility to answering correctly the questions (i.e., satisfying the
semantic and syntactic demands only). (Bertha's problems of inattention might be hers
alone. Indeed, in our own analysis of the teaching/learning situation, we shall suggest
something of this sort.) Unfortunately for Macmillan and Garrison's theory, this is, to
repeat, an impossible avenue of escape. Once the syntactic and semantic demands of
the questions are met, it is logically necessary that learning ensues (the student
necessarily "experiences the erotetic causal nexus"). To allow otherwise is to acknowl
edge a logical gap between teacher and learner, between answering the question and
the student's learning. And it is precisely that gap that their erotetic logical and causal
theory of teaching forbids.
Thus, in whichever direction Macmillan and Garrison turn, they must either yield
the distinction between central and peripheral teaching acts, a direction that undercuts
the usefulness of erotetic logic inanalyzing the conceptof teaching butwhich apparently
preserves their account of teacher responsibility, or else they must discard their notion
of erotetic causation, a direction that opens the gap between answering the question
and learning and places the usefulness of their erotetic framework for educational
researchers in question. Can they split the horns of this dilemma and locate a saving
solution? We are doubtful. Even so, there are many useful ideas in their theory that
we shall now attempt to sketch — and that is all we can do here — into our own.

33. Ibid.
34. ibid.

Volume 37, Number 3

284 Educational Theory

As mentioned early in the previous section, we have grave doubts about the
general success of erotetic logic in elucidating the commonsense concept of teaching.
It may prove useful in giving an account of teaching a very small body of subject matter
in which questions can be formulated with precise syntactical and semantical conditions
and in which the answers to those questions are precisely determinable (e.g., certain
empirical knowledge). Most subject matter of educational importance, however, is not
of this sort. Normative subject matter, methodological canons, and mathematics have
no determinate semantics. And, interestingly, insofar as causal explanations in the
sciences are pragmatic in nature, erotetic logic cannot hope to give an adequate
analysis of theirconditions of satisfaction (on this, see van Fraassen and Achinstein).3*
There is, here, an even graver difficulty. HIntikka's erotetic logic is designed to cover
questions that admit only of one, uniquely determined, answer. It cannot deal with
questions that admit of more than one "reasonable" answer, since no more than one
reasonable answer can be true of the world, and all may be false.
Macmillan and Garrison implicitly recognize this constraint when they state that
the teacher's answer must be correct.38 And though they mention that they can deal
with matters of belief, they have yet to show how erotetic logic can handle them. In
education, as in life and science, very little is of certainty, for which reason many
philosophers of education have held that the aim of teaching is to develop reasonable
(or evidential) belief in students — or to help them become evidential believers.37
Consider, moreover, the difficulties involved in accommodating skill acquisition, moral,
social, and emotional learning to their scheme.33
Though we do not see much hope, beyond an extremely narrow range, for an
erotetic analysis of teaching, several aspects of Macmillan and Garrison's program
seem to us crucial and true. The first is their emphasis, shared by a wide variety of
philosophers of education, on the intentionality of teaching in all of its forms. Whatever
else it is, teaching is an intentional activity in relation to learning. Second, we underline
our support for the view that it is logically impossible to characterize teaching without
reference to bringing about learning. The intention of teaching acts is the bringing
about of learning. Moreover, like Macmillan and Garrison and, we think, Ennis, we take
the relation between teaching and learning to be causa/ in nature.
Now it is this last claim that, for some, Is controversial. Yet we think its truth is
crucial not merely for the efficacy of educational research on teaching, but also for
showing what the limits are for teacher accountability. For those who believe that
teaching is logically related to learning, such as Macmillan and Garrison, are also likely
to believe that teachers are far more accountable for the failure to bring about learning
than we think. Indeed, it follows from this view that if the teacher is unsuccessful in
bringing about learning, the teacher may have been doing anything but teaching —
absent "external" defeating factors, we have here the mark of negligence or incom
petence.
The "logical relationists" fall into two camps: (1) those who believe teaching is
both logically and causally related to learning (Paul J. Dietl and Macmillan and Garrison
are examples here); (2) those who believe that the relation is logical in some sense,
but who believe logical relations rule out causal relations (see Melden and Stoutland

35. Bas C. van Fraassen, The Scientific Image (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980); and
Peter Achinstein, The Nature of Explanation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).
36. Macmillan and Garrison, "Erotetics Revisted," 359 and 360.
37. See. e.g., Thomas F. Green, The Activities of Teaching (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971).
38. In fairness to Macmillan and Garrison, they gamely try to assimilate teaching someone
how to swim to their framework. As they recognize, practice is necessary in this. Yet they regard
practicingepisodes (supervised or not) as question answering just as much as intellectual episodes
of teaching rftaf. Though they protest that this is not "verbal magic," it is difficult to see how it is
anything else. In practicing, if anyone is answering questions, it is the would-be swimmer, not the
coach. See "Erotetics Revisited." 359-60.

Summer 1987
 Teacher Accountability 285

on this general position).39 The latter accept some version of Hume's analysis of
causation that holds that cause and effect must be logically independent (under some
description); the former reject the Humean analysis (see Macmillan and Garrison).40 On
either account, however, a "strong" thesis that teachers are strictly and solely ac
countable for lack of student learning necessarily follows.
Thus, it will be sufficient for our purposes here to show that teaching is not logically
related to learning in any interesting sense that rules out causal relations or supports
the strong thesis for teacher accountability. Teaching and learning in particular are
logically independent in the Humean-Davidsonian sense, as we shall show. (This claim
does not generalize, however. We do believe that in some cases there are genuine
causal connections between phenomena that also involve logical connections that do
violate Humean-Davidsonian desiderata — see, e.g., Taylor and Ericson.41 Thus, in
those cases we may well side with Dietl and Macmillan and Garrison. We simply deny
that this holds for teaching and learning.) In an opposite direction, we reject the position
that there are neither logical nor causal relations between teaching and learning.
Thomas F. Green, most notably, champions this position.42There is much to be learned
from Green on teaching and on learning and teacher accountability, we think, but his
view of causation is not sufficiently subtle.
Our point of departure is the well-known task-achievement analysis of teaching
and learning, a point we share with Ennis. Suitably understood and modified, we believe
it is the correct analysis. In commenting upon it, Macmillan and Garrison note that it
has two principal goals: (1) it drives a wedge between teaching and learning, so that
in the task sense of 'teach' one can say that "X is teaching" without implying that the
subject matter is being learnt; (2) it clarifies the relation between the activities of
teaching and the success of them, so that, like seeking and finding, teaching and
learning are related as task and achievement.43 Macmillan and Garrison offer several
reasons for thinking the task-achievement analysis is inadequate: first, Dietl's argument
for showing that teaching without learning is "necessarily a misfire";44 second, their
own argument based on their notion of erotetic causation;45 third, their gloss on Sylvain
Bromberger's analysis of activity and accomplishment terms;46 and fourth, their claim
that task-achievement analyses leave the relation between teaching and learning a
mysterious one.47 In rebuttal to these arguments, we shall provide evidence that leads
one on rational grounds to prefer a task-achievement analysis to any rival candidate.
First, consider Dietl's argument in his classic, but all too neglected, posthumous
article "Teaching, Learning and Knowing."46 After reviewing the arguments of B. 0.
Smith, I. Scheffler, P. Komisar, and T. F. Green, all distinguished adherents of the view
that teaching and learning are not logically connected, Dietl offers his own positive
argument to show that they are mistaken. Without offering any explanations for his
choice, Dietl takes acts of explaining as the "most promising" teaching act in showing
a logical connection between teaching and learning and asks "whether or not explaining

39. A. I. Melden, FreeAction(London: Routledge &Kegan Paul, 1961),and FrederickStoutland,

"The Logical Connection Argument," inStudies in the Theory ofKnowledge, American Philosophical
Quarterly Monograph Series (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971).
40. Macmillan and Garrison, "An Erotetic Notion of Causality."
41. Charles Taylor, "Explaining Action," Inquiry 13; and David P. Ericson, "Cognition, Emotion,
and Attribution Theory in the Psychology of Motivation," in Philosophy of Education, 1982, ed.
Donna H. Kerr (Normal, III.: Philosophy of Education Society, 1983). and "Emotion and Action in
Cognitive Psychology: Breaching a Fashionable Philosophical Fence." in Philosophy of Education,
1984. ed. Emily Robertson (Normal, III.: Philosophy of Education Society. 1985).
42. Green, The Activities of Teaching, 140-42.
43. Macmillan and Garrison, "Erotetics Revisited," 357-58.
44. Ibid., 358.
45. Macmillan and Garrison, "An Erotetic Notion of Causality."
46. Macmillan and Garrison, "Erotetics Revisited," 358.
47. Ibid.
48. Paul J. Dietl, "Teaching, Learning and Knowing," Educational Philosophy and Theory 5,
no. 1 (1973).

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286 Educational Theory

canbe explicated without reference to understanding (its analogue to learning)."49 Upon

dispensing with the deductive-nomological model of explanation (that makes no ref
erence to understanding), Dietl concludes:
it appears, then, that 'explain' and 'understand' are conceptually connected.
One could not perfectly well understand the former without understandingthe
latter. Explanations which do not provide understanding are necessarily ab
normal The point of engaging in the activitywould be lost— And teaching
is to leaming here, as explaining is to understanding— [Without students
present and my speaking at an audience-appropriate level of complexity] it
could not be my serious Intention to bring [learning] about by what I am doing.
So teaching appears to be bothcausallyanddeBnltlonally connected to learning.
Itis logically necessary that normally the resultof teachingbe teaming.Teaching
without learning is necessarily a misfire. (Emphases ours; author's original
emphasis removed)50

Dietl is right 'Explaining' cannot be definitionally characterized independently of

'understanding'; and 'teaching' cannot be definitionally characterized independently of
'learning'. To explain is to intend to bring about understanding; and, as he further says,
to teach is to intend to bring about leaming. Teaching' and 'learning' are logically
connected in these ways. But in both cases Dietl fallaciously argues from the fact that
'explaining' (and 'teaching') must be characterized by the intent to bring about under
standing (and leaming) to the conclusion that one logically cannot be engaged in the
activity of explaining (and teaching) without the occurrence of understanding (and
learning). Quite obviously, however, the characterization of an activity is one thing, but
the success (or nonsuccess) of the endeavor is quite another. It is only if engagement
in teaching somehow guaranteed (its own rate of) success that we would have a case
in which the phenomena of teaching (and not its characterization) are logically related
to the phenomena of learning. Intentions to bring about learning, like other intentions,
are often thwarted. Even Dietl admits "the undeniable fact that teaching, even good
teaching, can take place without the occurrence of learning."51 Thus, it is not the case
that "teaching without learning is necessarily a misfire." They are logically independent
phenomena, regardless of their logically connected characterization (and here, of
course, 'learning' makes no essential reference to 'teaching').
Concerning Macmillan and Garrison's second argument, it follows from the failure
of Dietl's argument that their own argument concerning erotetic causation must fail.
For if good teaching, to be construed interms of satisfyingthe syntacticaland semantical
desiderata of the question (and with the intention of bringing about learning), need not
result in learning (necessarily experiencing the erotetic causal nexus), then exposed is
the logicalgap between teaching and learning. Now they do say that the teaching must
satisfy the questioner, not merely the question. But here, as is typical, they slide from
their own account of teaching in which teaching is aimed only at answering the questions
students ought to ask to a view that they deny: viz, that the teacher must address
questions that the student actually asks. They cannot have it both ways.52 Moreover,
though there may be a logical connection of some sort between syntactically and

49. ibid.. 7.
50. Ibid.. 9-10.
51. Ibid., 4.
52. And, at any rate, it would seem strangeto tie teaching — and especially good teaching —
to satisfying the questioner. The question actually raised by a student may be irrelevant, out of
bounds, etc. Decent teaching may call for rejecting the question in part or total, or may even
require refusing Jo answer it because the teacher wants the students to solve it on their own.
One noted educator, John Passmore, in "On Teaching to be Critical," In Education and Reason,
ed. R. F. Dearden, P. H. Hirst, and R. S. Peters (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975). 39.
writes that "one should add that the very existence of the problem is not. normally, known to the
student. One of the educator's tasks is to make his students puzzled The fact remains that
unless his pupils leave school puzzled his teachers have failed as educators, however successful
they may have been as instructors."

Summer 1987
 Teacher Accountability 287

semantically specifiable questions and their answers, the relation between teacher and
learner here is, as they admit, a pragmatic one. And it is most difficult to see how one
could transform pragmatic relations into logical relations, except by a most stipulative
definition.
The third argument that Macmillan and Garrison provide for thinking that teaching
and learning are so tightly logically related depends upon Sylvain Bromberger's
distinction between"activity" and "accomplishment" terms.53 For example, the "taught"
in "X taught Y to 2" can be taken to mean that "X was engaged in teaching Y to Z"
(activity term) where there is no imputation of success. Or else it can mean "X was
successful in teaching Y to Z" (accomplishment term). Now, of course, it would be an
utter contradiction to say that "X was successful in teaching Y to Z, but Z did not learn
Y." No doubt there. Surely, bringing about learning is the intended aim of teaching. And
when the aim has been reached, the teaching has come to a successful cessation. If
the aim has not been reached, the intention embedded in teaching activities has been
frustrated. But none of this shows that teaching logically requires learning to occur.
For that to be true, it is necessary to show that "X was engaged in teaching Y to Z
(activity term), but Z did not learn Y" is a logical contradiction. In such a case, failure
to learn would a priorirule out the fact that X was engaged in teaching at all. Macmillan
and Garrison have said nothing in support of the claim that the activity term results in
a contradiction. Indeed, it is difficult to see what could be said in support, since failure
to learn implies only that the teaching was unsuccessful, not that teaching did not
occur at all.
The fourth and last argument concerns the so-called mysterious nature of task-
achievement analysis. This tag, borrowed from Dietl's analysis, was first used against
Paul Komisar's54 and Tom Green's55 task-achievement analyses. Komisar, in our view
correctly, argued against a logical connection between teaching and learning but admitted
that there is something of a "conceptual communion" between the ideas. Since there
is an implication of divine mysteries in the notion of theological communion, Dietl can
readily be forgiven. To demythologize the situation, however, we suspect that Komisar
was taken with the characterization of teaching as logically involving the intent to bring
about learning. But that is a communion of a different sort from one that transubstantiates
(necessarily) teaching resolve into success. (That would be the real miracle to explain
if teaching actually did imply learning.)
The alleged mystery of Green's analysis is far more profane, however. As we
mentioned above, Green denies that teaching and learning are either logically or causally
related. And though Green calls learning the "upshot" of teaching, he provides no
further analysis of "upshottedness," as Dietl correctly notes. Green, we think, is wrong
in denying the causal relation, but his analysis of the teaching/learning situation is by
far the most perceptive in the literature. For he introduces, though shades of Socrates,
the idea that the learner has more than a supporting role to play in the teaching/
learning interaction. It is.an idea that philosophers of education and educational
researchers have yet to appreciate.
Despite his discussion of teaching and learning within the task-achievement
framework, Green ultimately avoids committing himself to that analysis. In contrast he
states, "Furthermore, it may be a mistake to think of teaching and learning as task
and achievement simpliciter, because teaching and learning are terms each of which
can be used both in a task and achievement sense."56 Several things are bothering
Green here. First, he correctly understands that teaching and learning are not logically
related. But he is also concerned about viewing learning as the achievement, causal
effect, or product of teaching. He is troubled by this, because "if teaching and learning

53. Macmillan and Garrison, "Erotetics Revisited," 358-59.

54. B. Paul Komisar, "Teaching: Act and Enterprise," in Concepts of Teaching, ed. C. J.
Macmillan and Thomas W. Nelson (Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1968), 63-88.
55. Green, The Activities of Teaching.
56. Ibid.. 142.

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288 Educational Theory

are causally related or productively related, then the failure to produce learning is the
teacher's responsibility."57 Green recoils from the strong thesis of holding the teacher
fully responsible for the student's learning, since he clearly realizes that the student is
implicated in the teaching/learning situation as well. In an important passage Green
continues, "If teaching and learning... are to be understood as task and achievement,
then they are the task and achievement of different persons. Perhaps we would be on
better ground if we viewed teaching as the task of which getting someone to learn is
the corresponding achievement, or learning is the achievement of which studying,
investigating, or practicing is the corresponding task."58
Green just about has it right here. What is missing from Macmillan and Garrison's
analysis, Dietl's analysis, and even other task-achievement analyses, is the crucial
activity of the learner in learning. On the Macmillan and Garrison erotetic analysis, for
example, the learner is so far removed from the teacher/learner interaction that the
role played by the learner is scarcely more than that of a passive recipient of the
answer provided by the teacher. For once we take the teacher's answering the questions
to be the heart of the teaching/learning situation, it is difficult to see what else the
learner might be. It is this aspect of their erotetic theory that bothers Pendlebury, and
it is an aspect that bothers us as well. But once, as with Green, the learner's actual
situation (not merely some epistemological ought) is brought into the center of the
picture, then the issue of teacher accountability is transformed. For if learning is in
part the achievement of the learner, then not all hangs on the activities of the teacher.
But if Macmillan and Garrison's analysis implies that learning is too much of a
passive thing where one simply receives the teacher's answers, one can go to the
other extreme in thinking that learning itself is an action or activity.59 Now, obviously,
one can learn without being taught. And even in teaching/learning situations, good
students can generally overcome inept teaching performance by means of their own
interaction with texts and subject matter materials. (This is why researchers on teaching
must be as much concerned with what students are doing as they are with what
teachers are doing.) But learning is not an action as such; rather, it is the achievement
of the student's acts and activities of attending, perceiving, studying, practicing, and
investigating.60
Now it looks, however, that we have followed Green too far in decoupling teaching
from learning. By placing much greater responsibility on the learner for learning, we
may have succeeded in exonerating teachers from responsibility for the failure of
students to learn; but to say that learning is merely an upshot of teaching, as Green
does, we have also apparently reinforced Dietl's and Macmillan and Garrison's charge
that this relationship is mysterious at best. |
The answer, as we have suggested, is to decline to follow Green's lead Into those
murky waters. To use Ennis's terminology, teaching is a cause of learning, but only a
partial cause. It is important to recognize that Green rules out a causal connection
between teaching and learning on the grounds "that teaching can occur when learning
does not."61 In other words, Green's test for causality is one of sufficient-causation: if
C (the purported cause) occurs and E (the purported effect) does not, then no causal
relation exists between C and E. We agree, of course, that teaching and leaming do
not pass this sufficiency test for causal relations. Though Green is correct in thinking

57. ibid., 143.

58. Ibid., 142.
59. Paul Hirst, in "What Is Teaching?" The Philosophy of Education, ed. R. S. Peters (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1973), 163-77, for example, calls learning an activity.
60. It has just been brought to our attention, though too late to be considered here, that
Gary O Fenstermacher, "Philosophy of Research on Teaching: Three Aspects," in Handbook of
Research on Teaching, 3rd ed., ed. Merlin C. Wittrock (New York: Macmillan, 1986), 37-49, has
developed more thoroughly some of Green's insights on the role of the student. Like Green,
however, he believes that teaching and learning are causally unrelated. We hope to discuss
Fenstermacher's views in a later paper.
61. Green, The Activities of Teaching, 140.

Summer 1987
 Teacher Accountability 289
that this means that there can be no general recipe that empirical researchers can
discover for producing learning,62 it doesn't entail that teaching and leaming are causally
unrelated. The sufficiency test is too stringent for dealing with nearly all causal
phenomena (and especially those in social and educational matters). It is Green's use
of the sufficiency notion of causation thatcreatesthe problem and leads himto conclude
wrongly that there are no causal relations between teaching and learning.
The kind of causal relations that are most frequently to be found in the teaching/
learning situation are "INUS" and/or "INUP" causal relations. An INUS cause is
(roughly) defined as an /nsuffificient butAfonredundant condition that is part of a set of
conditions that is Unnecessary but Sufficient for its effect. An INUP cause, in contrast,
is similar in every way with the exception that when conjoined with the other INUP
conditions, it forms a set of conditions that merely confers a certain probability on the
occurrence of the effect.63 The basic idea behind INUS (and INUP) causation when
applied to teaching and learning is as follows. As everyone should know, teaching by
itself is rarely, if ever, sufficient for learning. If the student fails to attend to the teaching,
fails to practice, fails to study or do homework, etc., obviously the student has little
chance of learning the subject matter. This gives insight into Dietl's observation that
even excellent teaching can fail to bring about learning. It also shows why the teacher's
answering the questions, even when appropriate and done correctly, hardly carries its
own guarantee of success. Teaching is an INUS (or INUP) cause of learning. In the
same way, the student's attending (to the teaching), studying, practicing, etc., is seldom
sufficient for learning. Though bright students,given appropriate background knowledge
or native abilities, may master a subject matter or set of skills by themselves, without
(or in spite of) the teaching, in most academic contexts positive student efforts are not
enough. But student efforts in interaction with the teacher's guidance, clarifications,
and explanations, etc., may be sufficient to produce learning {may because in some
contexts or in dealing with some subjects, even the greatest efforts and the best
teaching may fail short — this is indicative of INUP causation, not INUS). Typically,
then, student efforts and teaching activities are INUS (or INUP) causes of student
learning. Thus, Green is less than correct in suggesting that learning is the achievement
of the learner, where learning is merely the (mysterious) upshot of teaching. Student
learning, most often, is the joint achievement of the learner and teacher.
Given this way of clarifying the task-achievement analysisof the teaching/learning
situation, we have at once a nonmysterious causal theory of teaching that does justice
to both teacher and learner; to both the activities of studying and activities of teaching
in the production of learning. At the same time, it is a theory that allows us to explain
why researchers seeking invariant recipelike generalizations relating teaching behaviors
to student achievement have been singularly unsuccessful.6* In these respects, the

62. Ibid., 141.

63. These definitions and distinctions between sufficiency causation, INUS causation, and
pure probabilistic causation are treated in depth in Ellett and Ericson, "Causal Laws and Laws
of Association," "Correlation, Partial Correlation,and Causation," and "An Analysis of Probabilistic
Causation in Dlchotomous Structures." INUS causation was first formally introduced by J. L.
Mackie in "Causes and Conditions," American Philosophical Quarterly 2 (1965): 245-64, though
he was anticipated by the sociologist/philosopher of science Stephan Nowak in "Some Problems
of Causal Interpretation of Statistical Relationships," Philosophy of Science, 27 (1960): 23-38. We
are responsible for the rather obvious extension of INUP causation; we think that it is most likely
this notion that captures the flavor of causal relations in teaching.
64. INUS and INUP conceptions of causality are interactive in nature. As a result they are
ideal for capturing the interactions between teacher, learner, and subject matter inherent in the
teaching/learning situation. They contrast clearly, then, with sufficiency and probabilistic notions
of causation. Because educational researchers typically seem to assume either sufficiency or
probabilistic causal relations in their investigations, they have an exceedingly difficult time in
capturing the nonlinear interactions in teaching and learning. Lee J. Cronbach's essay, "Beyond
the Two Disciplines of Scientific Psychology," The American Psychologist 12, no. 11 (1975): 116-
27, on Aptitude X Treatment Interaction research is indicativeof the difficultiesof forcing interactive
phenomena into sets of linear relations. Now it is true that the Interactions between teachers and

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290 Educational Theory

INUS (or INUP) causal theory of teaching seems to provide a more adequate conceptual
framework for the empirical investigation of the teaching/learning situation than alter
native formulations. And lastly, such a theory permits the foundation for the assignments
of credit and blame in just those cases where credit and blame are due. To that final
task we now turn.

IV.

Earlier we examined Macmillan and Garrison's example of the swimming instructor

who was blamed for failing to teach the student just because the student did not attend
the instructions.65 It was our intuitive response to mention that things had gone awry
with such a theory that holds the teacher responsible. Any theory that encourages that
counterintuitive inference, as all theories claiming a logical relation or sufficient causal
relation between the phenomena of teaching and learning do, seemed on the face of
it false to educational phenomena. But the kind of causal theory that we propose here
now explicitly enables us to explain the fallacious nature of that inference.
Let us say that one's teaching has been successful when the student has learned
the intended material; we shall say that one's teaching has been unsuccessful when
the student has not learned the material. To judge the success of a teaching activity
is to focus primarily on whether the student learns the material.
But there is another way in which a teacher's activities can be judged which is
independent of the student-success criteria. Let us say that one's teaching has been
good in so far as the teaching reflects an adequate understanding of the material and
provides a reasonable instructional sequence that is appropriate to the students'
learning level. We shall say that one's teaching is bad (or a failure) in so far as it
reflects an inadequate understanding of the material and fails to provide a reasonable
instructional sequence.
The important point is that lack of success in teaching does not entail that the
teaching is bad (or a failure), for ft is possible that the teaching be good, but for all
that the student does not learn. Also, it can be seen that failure in teaching does not
entail lack of success in teaching, for it may be that the teacher is failing to perform
the right activities inthe right ways, butthe student learns the intended material anyhow.
We have a conception of teaching, therefore, which differs in important ways from
the Macmillan-Garrison conception. In our view, teaching is that activity that alms to
help the student learn the intended material by means of providing a reasonable and
appropriate instructional sequence. Not only must a teacher regard the instructional
sequence as beingconducive to the student's learning; more importantly, in our causal
theory of teaching, the primary focus of the evaluation is whether the means selected
by the teacher are conducive to student learning. Given this conception of teaching,
good teaching does not entail that every single student learns the intended material.
We believe itcaneven be shown that good teaching does noteven entail thata specific
proportion of the students in the class will learn the material. As Max Black and Michael
Scriven have pointed out,68 the determination of whether a set of teaching activities is
good (or adequate) essentially involves a comparison with the alternative approaches
and methods for teaching the material. The essential feature of good teaching is not
some specific success rate, butthe fact that itis comparatively better at bringing about
learning than its alternatives. And this comparative analysis will use the concept of the
proper reference class to carry out the inquiry. The specificationof the reference class

learners become exceedingly complex and difficult to research. But unless researchers adopt the
INUS and INUP notions, we believe that there is notmuch likelihood of progress here.
65. Macmillan and Garrison, "Erotetics Revisited," 359.
66. Max Black, "Reasonableness," in Education and the Development of Reason, ed. R. F.
Dearden, P. H. Hirst, and R. S. Peters (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1972) 194-207; and
Michael Scriven. "The Methodology of Evaluation." Principles of Curriculum Evaluation, ed. R.
Tyler and M. Scriven (Chicago: Rand-McNally. 1967); 39-83.

Summer 1987
 Teacher Accountability 291

will involve the characterization of the level and range of the class members' information
and cognitive abilities as well as the range of motivation.
Thus, our theory, unlike the others, permits us to make a strong distinction between
"failure in teaching" and a "lack of success in teaching" (i.e., no learning) and to draw
this distinction on grounds internal to the teaching/learning situation. While "failure in
teaching'' does imply that the teacher can be held accountable for his or her performance,
"lack of success in teaching" does not. Rather, it merely means that the aim of teaching
has been thwarted, perhaps, by circumstances outside of the teacher's control.
Now of circumstances beyond the teacher's control, there are two kinds: (1) those
external to the teaching-learning situation and (2) those internal to it. The former range
from the mundane, such as student leg cramps in swimming, to the sublime, such as
acts of God. These external interruptions, of course, can limit teacher responsibility
even on the most ardent logical or causal sufficiency thesis. However, we maintain that
internal circumstances can also absolve the teacher of responsibility. Of particular
importance are those circumstances related to the aspects and features of the learner.
For example, if teachers were to make a reasonable effort to ensure that students are
attending to the teaching, but the students were to refuse to concentrate, then the
subsequent student failure to learn would probably not be the teacher's fault. There
are situations in which it may well be the student's fault. Similar remarks can be made
about the student's failure to study, to investigate, to practice, or to do assigned
homework. Notice that, according to our view, the teaching/learning situation itself
extends well beyond the activities and processes of the classroom.
In some ways our view is similar to a view advanced by Israel Scheffler. Scheffler
holds that

to teach, in the standard sense, is at some points at least to submit oneself

to the understanding and independent judgment of the pupil, to his demand
for reasons, to his sense of what constitutes an adequate explana
tion Teaching, in this way, requires us to reveal our reasons to the students
and, by so doing, to submit them to his evaluation and criticism To teach
is thus, in the standard use of the term, to acknowledge the "reason" of the
pupil, i.e., his demand for and judgment of reasons, even though such demands
are not uniformly appropriate at every phase of the teaching interval.67

It can be seen that Scheffler's view also maintains the distinction between "successful"
teaching and "good" teaching.88 Notice, however, that although Scheffler puts forward
a quite specific view of the teacher's responsibilities, he fails to discuss what the
student's responsibilities are. Though we can do hardly better here, we can in a few
final words mark out this area as an important one for further inquiry.
That there has been a strong tendency by philosophers, educational researchers,
and the public to focus on only what goes on in the classroom and especially on what
the teacher does, shows how narrow is their understanding of the educational context.
The limited nature of this focus may well be responsible for ever-increasing "methods"
of classroom-management and student-motivational techniques in which one makes
the teachers responsible for mastering. But such a focus directs our attention away
from the important fact that teaching, even the best teaching, cannot by itself bring
about learning. Student efforts (at various activities) are almost always required too. In
many contexts, students should be seen as agents of their own learning; they should
take on their proper share of the responsibility. It does a gross injustice to point a
blaming finger only at teachers, especially for that which is beyond their control.

67. Israel Scheffler, "Educational Metaphors," in his The Language of Teaching, (Springfield,
III.: Charles C. Thomas, 1960), 57.
68. Though Scheffler in the above quote seems to be offering an analysis of 'teaching', it
has become clear over the years that he is advocating an ideal, a view of what good teaching
amounts to.

Volume 37, Number 3

 292 Educational Theory
Many teachers, we think, have known these things for years. They can recite
anecdote after anecdote of students who could not care less, of parents who are
unbothered or not even there (and surely it is parents who must be held responsible
for the actions of the younger children).69 and of administrators who are unsupportive
iJStimes..seems that only philosophers of education, educational researchers, and"
n?nf«^nal
profession arestatesmen
unaware. *with
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required, then,ofbeyond
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2KL19/ ?a.min9 Sltuati°n? Obviously, we require improved empirical research designs
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^Lhio
suitable rL afSK°0m-
Actual BuUt \n
basis, what the ethical theory isofalso
responsibilities required and
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learners are.given
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LSn ^nfarvJfS.Hthe resP°nsibi,ity to help bring about certain kinds of learning, in
certain contexts there may be good reasons for the student to bear a parallel
K S 0 fect h's <°I her>own ,earnin9-7° Although we cannot go into medeta fs
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responsibilities for learning.situations, the students.
the ^or^"n«S2JSJnih°I»fr wthose,now trumpeting educational reform by pointing to
ran h» SLn ♦«* °ftheteachin9 Profession. No doubt anumber of excellent measures
2 £.l?Sl? strengthen the art and practice of teaching in our classrooms. Though
we have major reservations about identifying and removing the ablest teachers from
nLriaS.Sarn»om '" °/?er to ma,ke a"asi-administrative instructional leaders out of them
SSL!3 tamT' ^moving the best surgeons from their practices), freeing up
ffiKlf? STe f°rm °J differential careerteacnfna ,addercou|d be very beneficial
LV thi nrOcintS!eAh0Wfrr' t™ continued efforts to denigrate unjustly the performance
S pubSc fmSge 6 S°an aW in stren9thenin9 the Profession or enhancing
ahiiitlm^freJ°me* "eyeless, who (cynically?) suspect that the teacher account
ability movement is something of a smoke screen, merely a means to advance other
KK2^'5£Bnd tea0|her.ref°rm itS6lf-'" this°ase"teachers aresfrnptyplS
-h^
l^fSS^SZ?^ 3nd W6" ^°nd *» PO-^hS^'or
m«inSJricn«ncL,i!TinS,!ha.t '*is clearly time to <*UBn the clamor for holding teachers
rJiLfhS «Sible for fl?' °-Ur educa«onal ills. Teachers should be held properly
accountable. But we maintain that they should be held accountable only for that which
SXr^
fundZ iow«r ^«" and state'e9islatures who have the powerto increase educational
«£?££ Inn °lSS SIZeS' and otherwise create external conditions conducive to
SS^-iS' P hapS m°!,t imPortant|y- we might more profitably urge that students
£2,£EE? ?w09?,Z! and accept the responsibilities that are uniquely their own in
«nf,S'
education^3t these
fiUdentS become
ways, activewell
we may a9ents
attainof their own understanding
abetter learning. Shouldofwetheapproach
vaE
so c?u9sh!dC2vathL°I!!™ nfb,h to™****: however- bV «he realization that some parents may be
chiwr«n
children «„
on. MS,atU e.ofmay
Asimilar point ,heIrbeown
madecircumstances that theytoo.
about some children, are in no position to urge
S their
the relat on oTXT'J,0.?','0 ^ I?" ?aSSJize p,ays arole nere-""» empirical literature on
Ln«^H~ k a8S s'^e ,0 educa,,or»al performance has yielded equivocal results To our
sTudta* Lm°rS
tSf™- S,Udent
Se"^e atten^"
su99ests. and e"0rt
however, havesmaller
that the ROt been
the adequately 00°!^
class, the easier it is; fortorteachers
in these
™Li inKaKn<lm?ni,or S,udent a«entiveness and effort. Though, obvtously.ThJ^teacher Snot
22522!? b8haVT' ' seems reasonab'e on the whole to how teacherste^^
classes fnh,eH-eKme.ntJ"lar9er
H»c«i in which students arec,asses than responsible
mainly held ln sma,,er ones. For this,
for their owncons^Ke^SfcSSSiS
learning 9

Summer 1987
 Teacher Accountability 293

responsibilities in education and of the roles of those who contribute to carrying them
out.

The authors contributed equally to this manuscript and, therefore, are equally accountable
for its fortunes. We would like to thank the members of the California Association for Philosophy
of Education and George F. Kneller for their helpful comments.

Volume 37, Number 3

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