Which of these is grammatically correct?
As educators, we are always looking for ways to reach all the learners in our classroom as effectively as we are able.
As educators, we are always looking for ways to reach all the learners in our classroom as effectively as we are able to.
Just a made up rule, created by a 17th century poet called John Dryden and later popularized by an 18th century clergyman called Robert Lowth.
There's nothing wrong with ending sentences with prepositions. English is part of the germanic rooted languages and being so, it shares the ways sentences are written. So, it's ok.
What's not ok is over-using them. Here's an example and you can check also more great Q&A's: http://www.grammarphobia.com/qa#a1
OK, didn´t want to copy&paste but I think some people is too lazy to check and read:
1. Preposition at the end:
There’s no grammatical reason not to end a sentence with a preposition. The 17th-century poet John Dryden concocted this so-called rule, apparently to make English act more like Latin. But we can blame Robert Lowth, an 18th-century clergyman and Latin scholar, for popularizing it.
The prohibition caught on, perhaps because of its simple-mindedness, even though great literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Milton is full of sentences ending in prepositions (positioning words like “at,” “on,” “over,” “up,” and so on).
The reason we’re compelled to end sentences with prepositions is that this is a normal Germanic sentence structure. And English is a Germanic (not a Romance) language. (See FAQ #33.)
While there’s nothing wrong with ending an English sentence with a preposition, one can overdo it. A quotation, attributed to E. B. White, shows how silly a pile of prepositions can sound. Child supposedly says to father, who has brought the wrong book upstairs for bedtime reading: “What did you bring me that book I don’t want to be read to out of up for?”
2. Split infinitive:
The belief that it’s wrong to split an infinitive is a notorious myth that grammarians have been trying to debunk for generations. This never was a genuine rule. It was merely a misconception based on the wrong-headed notion that English (a Germanic language) should conform to the rules of Latin sentence structure.
An infinitive is a verb in its simplest form and often has the word “to” in front of it: “Darcy helped to find Lydia and Wickham.” But the “to” isn’t actually part of the infinitive and it isn’t always necessary: “Darcy helped find Lydia and Wickham.”
The myth against “splitting” an infinitive was born in the 19th century when Latin scholars misguidedly called it a crime to put a descriptive word between the prepositional marker “to” and the infinitive: “Darcy helped to quickly find Lydia and Wickham.”
Since “to” isn’t part of the infinitive, however, nothing is being split, and the whole idea of “splitting” an infinitive is nonsense. (In Latin, the infinitive is a single word without a prepositional marker, and obviously can’t be split.)
A sentence often sounds better when the “to” is close to the infinitive, but there’s no harm in separating them by putting an adverb or two in between. Writers of English have been happily “splitting” infinitives since the 1300s. So if you want to happily join them, feel free.
Both sentences are correct. The last phrase, in both instances, are a shortened form of "as effectively as we are able to [do] or [to do so]".
Why insert this phrase at all? For simplicity, I would recast the sentence as follows:
As educators, we are always looking for ways to reach all the learners in our classroom.
"Effectively" is understood from the context.
Both are valid, because both omit words that are not needed to make the message clear.
I could have gone to the nicer supermarket where they play relaxing classical music or the cheaper marketplace where vendors are screaming in my ears; I chose to go to the nicer supermarket [that plays relaxing classical music].
If I omit the last part in brackets, that does not change the meaning of the sentence. The context already made it clear that I was talking about that specific supermarket (which is nicer and plays relaxing classical music).
It would be correct to omit the repetition, because it doesn't serve any real purpose. It makes the sentence longer, without adding to it in any meaningful way.
Note that I could have also chosen to partially omit the repetition:
... I chose to go to the nicer supermarket that plays relaxing music.
... I chose to go to the nicer supermarket.
... I chose to go to the supermarket.
Which one I use is up to me to decide. Omitting repetitive parts is at the discretion of the speaker, as long as the conveyed message is not affected.
For your example, the full sentence would be:
As educators, we are always looking for ways to reach all the learners in our classroom as effectively as we are able to look for ways to reach all the learners in our classroom.
It's unnecessary repetition. Your statement has already made it clear that you were talking about looking for ways to reach all the learners in your classroom, you don't need to repeat it again.
In this case, it's up to you where you choose to omit the "to" or not. Both sentences are sufficiently correct and understandable, and the underlying meaning is not changed in any way.
There are many ways you could have phrased this:
as effectively as we are able.
as effectively as we are able to.
as effectively as we are able to do so.
as effectively as we can.
The distinction here is personal preference. All options are equally correct.
