It has long been known that people do better when more is expected of them. Considerable empirical evidence has shown that higher expectations lead to increased student performance, dubbed the Pygmalion effect (Alviridez & Weinstein, 1999; de Boer, Bosker, & van der Werf, 2010; Jussim & Harber, 2005). Conversely, there is a large body of evidence showing that having low expectations negatively affects the learning of students (Brophy, 1983; Brophy & Good, 1970; Cooper & Good, 1983; Kuklinski & Weinstein, 2000; St. George, 1983; Weinstein, 2002). This is because “when we expect certain behaviors of others, we are more likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur” (Rosenthal & Babad, 1985, p. 36). The importance of creating a culture of high expectations cannot be overstated, as it has been shown to be one of the most powerful ways to increase student learning and achievement (Hattie, 2009).
For years, Michael Fullan, an international icon in education, asserted the following:
The new mission for schools is to achieve 90 to 95 percent success. This is what it will take for societies to thrive in the complex world of the 21st century. (Fullan, Hill, & Crevola, 2006)
Fullan and colleagues also said,
The new mission takes over where the old one left off. It is to get all students to meet high standards of education and to provide them with a lifelong education that does not have the built-in obsolescence of so much old-style curriculum but that equips them to be lifelong learners.
(Fullan, Hill, & Crevola, 2006)
A couple of years ago, I had a discussion with Fullan and asked him if his views on this topic had changed. His response was,
The new mission of schools is to achieve 100% success and to have specific explanations and strategies for addressing any figure that falls short of full success. (Fullan, personal communication, 2015)
Others, like Schleicher and Stewart (2008), identified the key features of high-performing countries as well. These include the following:
One of the reasons for the success experienced in the Ontario strategy was the recognition that if we were going achieve excellence and equity, it was necessary to establish ambitious targets for our students. Along with the targets, we looked deeply into what the behavioral correlates of developing a culture of high expectations for all students and staff looked like.
High expectations for students success included the following:
Over the course of my career, it has been my conviction that having high expectations is one of the most important contributions that we can make in educating students. Having high expectations is, in essence, an equity issue. During the student forum at the Quest Conference in the York Region District School Boards a few years ago, a student said, “The best gift you can give me is your high expectations for me.”
As a first step, principals and teachers need to communicate to their students the belief that they can all achieve at high levels. In schools that have developed a culture of high expectations, student achievement and success are celebrated on a regular basis. The atmosphere is demanding, but students are having fun learning, because they are being stretched to reach their potential. Students are given exemplars of what good work looks like and are encouraged to measure their work against those standards. The focus is on tasks that require higher-order thinking and analytical skills.
High expectations must also permeate all classroom activities. Educators today must believe that all children can learn and achieve, given time and proper supports. If this is the case, those beliefs must be explicit and pervasive and must be made visible in schools and classrooms. Educators must be totally committed in their efforts to push the boundaries and do all that is within their reach to make success become a reality for all students.
And when one visits these schools and classrooms in which educators say they have a culture of high expectations for all, there should be examples of characteristics that are commonly discussed within education circles, for example.
Principals should
Teachers should
Students should
Parents should
Apart from a focus on issues related to justice, there are several social and economic reasons for societies to be concerned about equity (Gaskell & Levin, 2012). For example, there is increased recognition that inequality is linked to reduced social cohesion, which is in turn linked to poorer economic growth and less ability to attract investors (Green, Preston, & Janmaat, 2006; Lloyd-Ellis, 2003; Osberg, 1995). Furthermore, there is growing evidence that countries with less inequality tend to have better economic and social outcomes (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). This brings together the seemingly disparate social and economic arguments for reduced inequity.
Making schools more equitable has become a major mandate for governments across the globe. In the past, equity conversations have tended to focus on achievement gaps, as measured by standardized test scores. However, Ladson-Billings (2006), past president of the American Educational Research Association, argues that the achievement gap is a logical consequence of the “education debt,” a collection of the historical, economic, sociopolitical, and moral debts accrued against marginalized and racialized peoples and children. Thus, she states, effectively addressing the achievement gap must involve first addressing the education debt.
In a similar vein, there is growing recognition that achievement gaps in schools are heavily influenced by the opportunity gaps that students from traditionally marginalized backgrounds have faced. Opportunity gaps can be conceptualized in terms of three dimensions of inequality (Fraser, 2005). These are
This means that our idea of equity needs to move beyond equitable student achievement to include other outcomes, such as student experiences, discussions about their lives and the conditions that affect them on a daily basis, student engagement and well-being, and opportunities for students and their families to have a voice in the decisions that affect them. To this end, school systems should regularly collect various forms of large-scale student data—on student engagement, well-being, and achievement, to name a few—and disaggregate these data by social demographics to identify gaps in opportunity, experience, treatment, well-being, and achievement. In addition, while is it usually accepted that one of the purposes of education is to produce engaged citizens, equitable education requires that democratic practices be built directly into school structures, so as to promote critical democracy as a way of life (Glass, 2007).
Breaking Barriers: Excellence and Equity for All, by Glaze, Mattingley, and Levin (2012), identifies twenty-one strategies to close achievement gaps and concrete ideas to address these issues at all levels of the education system. We offer practical ideas for administrators and teachers to break down the barriers that can truncate the life chances of students. As mentioned earlier, the work being done in provinces such as Ontario and those proposed by the Nova Scotia Department of Education, among other Canadian provinces, provide some promising practices.
Leadership Lessons Learned
What Works?
Capacity Building Series
The Learning Exchange (formerly LearnTeachLead)