Teacher Expectations
And Student Achievement

Transforming Beliefs
Through Staff Development

Pygmalion Effect

What prevents ALL teachers from having high expectations for ALL students? How do you raise teacher expectations?

From my experience, I'd say that teachers simply haven't been presented with the facts and haven't been taught the benefits of a shift in their belief systems.

Teacher expectations have a profound impact on student achievement. This is known as the Pygmalion effect and it's been demonstrated repeatedly through classroom research. Nevertheless, far too few educators behave in a manner consistent with this principle.

The Pygmalion effect (also known as the Rosenthal effect or self-fulfilling prophecy) refers to an often cited study conducted in the 1960's by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson and described in their book Pygmalion in the Classroom.

Through this study, they examined the impact of teacher beliefs about students to determine if outcomes were affected. The study found that when teachers were given information that certain students were brighter than others, they tended to behave in ways that fostered those beliefs. This contributed to the students' results.

In other words, what the teachers believed about their students' abilities were ultimately reflected in their students' performance -- positively and negatively.

This study has important implications for teachers and principals including:

• What teachers and principals believe about their students tends to happen. What parents believe about their children tends to happen. It we expect much, they achieve much. If we expect little, they achieve little.

• Principals need to listen for clues in terms of what their teachers really believe about their students.

• When there is clear evidence that a teacher has low expectations for students, it can lead to lower levels of achievement.

There's a lesson here for everyone. Our beliefs affect the way we behave and that affects what ultimately happens. Whether we think all children can learn, or we don't really believe it, we're probably right. Our beliefs and behaviors will contribute to that outcome.

High Expectations -- The Mohawk Story

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to open a new urban high school in Virginia – my third new high school as principal. As soon as I arrived, I learned something troubling. It was common knowledge that the proposed attendance zone was supposed to be very challenging.

The principal of a rival high school said his test scores were going to go up because our new school, the school I was going to lead, was getting all of his "bad kids." In fact, only three teachers from a second rival high school applied to teach at our school. The rest of the teachers didn’t want to follow eight hundred of their "worst students."

It was the same story at the city’s other ten high schools. A member of the police department’s gang task force said the school district was crazy to put three rough neighborhoods under one roof. He said that gang violence was inevitable at a school with students nobody wanted.

By the second week of school, it seemed like the critics were right. On the morning of September 11, 2001, a fire broke out in our new gym.

When parents saw the fire trucks, they panicked. I later learned they thought the school was under terrorist attack like the World Trade Center was that day.

A week later, I had to appear on local television to defend our school's safety. We'd already confiscated two handguns from students.

It was going to take something dramatic to turn things around. What I needed was a secret weapon.

I knew that people usually achieved what was expected of them. In other words, student achievement was directly related to high expectations.

So, my secret weapon was to set very high expectations for our students and teachers. Goals others thought were impossible:

The quietest moment in the history of public education occurred when I went on the morning announcements to announce these goals to our student body. Can you imagine a moment when a 2,000 student high school was completely silent? Ours was, until finally, an explosion of laughter echoed throughout the hallways.

But I had another secret weapon – the teachers who did choose to come to our new school. A talented group of selfless human beings who were willing to look beyond the words that others had used to define the limits of our students’ abilities.

Still, it was a daily struggle to get our students to believe in themselves enough to try. We knew we had to do something more.

So I stepped way out of my comfort zone working late into the night practicing to a dance groove video. Over time, I created a convincing hip-hop alter ego – Doc Fro – the complete opposite of my buttoned-down, former banker image.

When Doc Fro was unveiled at the school’s first pep rally, my message was simple, “If a forty-plus year old principal can learn to do this, don’t tell me you can’t learn Calculus, Physics, and Algebra because I know you can.” For the first time in our school’s young history, we heard a collective roar of approval from our students.

Slowly, our students began to buy into our vision. Over the next month, we started to see a transformation.

Three months later, we could see how hard our students were trying. But the state tests still loomed in everyone’s minds. And then we reached the end of the year and finally had our results.

We were one of a select few high schools ever to become fully accredited by the state of Virginia in the first year!

We outperformed our rival high school in all four testing areas with the kids the rival school didn’t want!

We achieved the highest adjusted English test scores in the city!

We won a national technology competition!

And we won a state championship in an outdoor track relay event!

In our second year, we finished first in the city in both the adjusted English and math test scores!

In recognition of our students’ accomplishments, Doc Fro entered the pep rally on a motorcycle. In order to reward our students and teachers for their accomplishments, I sat myself down in a chair – and honored my commitment to have my hair cut into a royal blue mohawk.

And in our third year, we played for the state championship in football – and lost. But we won the football state championship the following year – the first one in the city in almost forty years!

It just goes to show, “. . . all things are possible to him that believeth.” (Mark 9:23)

My students thought my dreams for them were impossible, but they learned to overcome their doubts. Your dreams are possible, too.

The question becomes "How do we raise the expecatations of our teachers and principals?"

Refining Our Belief System

Although there is not one simple solution, we can use research to develop new and effective ways to improve student performance. Research has shown us that these factors have a significant impact on student achievement:

• teacher expectations
• classroom environment
• school environment
• disciplinary practices
• communication methods
• challenging and meaningful learning assignments
• attention to individual abilities and special needs
• parental involvement and support
• quality of instruction from teachers
• leadership ability of the principal

Staff Development Critical to Student Success

Research has shown that effective staff development improves teacher quality and principal effectiveness. Improved teacher quality and principal effectiveness result in higher student achievement. Effective staff development is essential.

With quality teachers and effective principals being the most critical components in education, it is imperative that we provide them with the training they need to create an educational environment in which all students can and will succeed.