Mike White, Stephen White, Amy Crouse, & Sharon Burcham

High Expectations:

March of the Potted Plants

By

Mike White, Stephen White, Amy Crouse, & Sharon Burcham

The Leadership and Learning Center

There will be a day, and likely several, when you will think teaching standard A03.9 is going to be impossible. You’ll fantasize about alternate career opportunities in hotel/motel management, and ask yourself, Can I really make a difference? Are these kids ever going to get it?

Perhaps many of your students come from poor and sometimes difficult homes. They speak a different language or have an individualized education plan. Is it fair to have high expectations of them and you? Would it be wrong to have compassion for their circumstances and give you and these students a break?

Teachers, and at times entire school districts, can get caught up in the thesis that certain children can’t achieve at high levels. They spend endless hours excusing, tracking and correlating the percent of low-birth weight babies, percent of children born to single moms, percent of children from families who receive government assistance, and percent of children with disabilities. Armed with printouts, statistics and newspaper clippings, they will lament that, “We are not strong enough to raise poor, ethnic minority or disabled students to a higher level due to forces outside the school tugging them downward.” And then these teachers start settling for “good enough” work. The result is an educational organization that doesn’t expect very much from itself or its students – and in turn doesn’t get much from either group.

You don’t have to look hard to find research which supports the notion that some children are

destined to fail. In 1966, Professor James S. Coleman published a Congressionally-mandated

study on why schoolchildren in minority neighborhoods performed at far lower levels than

children in suburban areas.Titled “Equality of Educational Opportunity,” his mammoth, 737-

page study reached the unsettling conclusions that teachers and schoolswere not society’s great

equalizersafter all and thatthe main cause of the achievement gap was in the backgrounds and

resources of families.

More than forty years later, some researchers still argue that we cannot count on schools to close gaps. They’ll cite dozens of reasons schools and teachers are doomed to come up short. A lack of affordable housing makes poorer children more transient, and so more prone to switch schools midyear, losing progress. Higher rates of lead poisoning, asthma and inadequate pediatric care also fuel low achievement, along with something as basic as the lack of eyeglasses. Even the way middle- and lower-class parents talk and read to their children is different, making learning more fun and creative for wealthier children.

The Family: America’s Smallest School Report developed by Educational Testing Service (2007) recently examined the family and home experiences that influence children’s learning. Their conclusion: “Our analysis shows that factors like single-parent families, parents reading to children, hours spent watching television and school absences, when combined, account for about two-thirds of the large differences among states in National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scores.”

For many educators and policy makers, research like the Coleman Report and the very recent ETS study raises a haunting question: Do outside forces tug so hard that they cannot be overcome by any particular kind of school, any set of in-school reforms or an effective and caring teacher? What if schools and teachers are not the answer?

Before throwing your hands up and exclaiming, “There’s nothing I can do”, the other side of this debate deserves consideration. Evidence based on different data and analytic methods attests to the success of individual schools in “beating the odds” and producing well educated youngsters in spite of the hostile forces at work in many of their kids’ lives.

Doug Reeves’ case study on 90/90/90 schools (from Accountability in Action, Second Edition; 90/90/90 chapter available for free download at is must reading. This inspiring study focuses on 90/90/90 schools, in which 90 percent of the students were members of ethnic minorities, 90 percent of the students were eligible for free or reduced lunch, and 90 percent met or exceeded state academic standards. Today, Reeves is energizing educators with reports of “100-100-100” schools. Also, read Haycock, Barth, Jackson, Mora, Ruiz, Robinson, and Wilkins’ excellent publication, “Dispelling the Myth” (available for download at

High performing, high minority and or poverty schools are not simply urban legends.They do exist. Here are some real examples we recently came across as we worked with the HoustonIndependentSchool District.

The Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the largest public school system in Texas and the seventh-largest in the United States. HISD is working hard to become Houstonians’ K-12 school system of choice, by constantly improving instruction and management to be as effective, productive, and economical as possible. We were working with this district developing school improvement plans. We didn’t go there looking for high-performing, high-poverty schools, but they were there, just as they are all around the country.

The table below lists HISD schools that have achieved 90% or higher on the 2007 Math and/or Reading state tests, and have at least 90% students eligible for free or reduced lunch.

High Achieving / High Poverty

HoustonIndependentSchool District (HISD) Schools

90% Poverty and 90% Poverty and 90% Poverty and

90% Achievement 90% Achievement 90% Achievement

on TAK Mathon TAK Reading on TAK Math and

Reading

Allen Elem.BellfortAcademyField Elem.

Burrus Elem.Harris, J. Elem.Carrillo Elem.

Dodson Elem.Herrera Elem..Edison Middle

Crawford Elem.Mading Elem..Henderson Elem.

De Zavala Elem.Port Houston Elem.Janowski Elem.

Love Elem.Ross Elem.Neff Elem.

McReynolds Middle.Sharpstown MiddleOsborne Elem. Paige (formerly Bowie) Elem. Rucker Elem.

Sherman Elem.Sanchez Elem.

Southmayd Elem.Tinsley Elem.

Some might argue that our list is too short to mean very much, only twenty-six schools. But the fact is it shows that it can be done.And really, if someone needs more than this example to prove that high-minority, high-poverty and high achievement schools are possible, they probably have a different agenda. The real work is not in proving the existence of these schools; it’s in replicating their success in more schools.

Psychologically, we can think of few things more terrifying than choosing or staying in a profession that has no impact or chance of changing a student’s life. We are teachers, not potted plants. Students don’t march past us year after year without having us touch their hearts and minds and vice versa. Intuitively, you know this is true.

So catch yourself the next time you ask, “Are these kids ever going to get this?” It would probably be more precise, more useful to ask, “In this class, with my instruction, do these kids have a chance of getting it?” Because it can be done and is being done with and for the kids who need it most. The challenge America faces is to do it with millions more. Of course it would be easier if all societies’ social and health problems were erased, but it can be done anyway. It is being done.