Why Johnny Can't Pass: An Explainability Program

The purpose of this article is to present an “Explainability Program” that makes the teacher accountable for students' failures. By implementing this program the teacher is rated by a superordinate according to the following four processes: a) diagnoses of problems that are preventing students from achieving daily objectives, b) the prescription of a supplemental remediation program to aid the slower students, c) implementation of this supplemental program within the constraints of the classroom and school, and d) evaluation of the teacher's own effectiveness relative to the above three items. The remainder of the paper describes how this program was implemented in three elementary algebra classes with the effect of decreasing the student failure rate by 40 per cent.