Teacher Expectations Matter. How Can We Raise Them?
The teachers many of us remember are often the most demanding. For one of us, that person was Mr. Murray, a high school English teacher. He developed a clever number system for identifying the building blocks of grammatical structure, like appositives, conjunctions, and subordinate clauses. An improvement over sentence diagramming (yes, that was an appositive), his method taught students to improve the complexity and style of their writing. Writing assignments that didn’t possess such sophistication were returned in blood-red ink to be rewritten.
Mr. Murray’s high expectations had us all thinking that we could be the next F. Scott Fitzgerald. That’s a good thing because, according to Jon Saphier, founder of Research for Better Teaching, the key to improving student performance is changing the way teachers think about academic ability, from something innate to that which can be developed (also referred to as a “growth mindset”). In his bestselling book High Expectations Teaching, Saphier explains, “More than any other belief, our belief about children and their capacity to learn influences the messages we send them and the actual learning they attain.”
A recent report published by our organization, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, provides more evidence to support this claim. The study, conducted by American University’s Seth Gershenson, uses federal data to investigate the link between high school teachers’ expectations for their students and various long-term outcomes. Gershenson’s proxy for expectations was a survey question that asked teachers: “How far in school do you expect this student to get?” Results showed that, whether in public, private, or charter schools, teachers who thought that a student would obtain a college degree had a positive effect on that student’s college persistence and completion and reduced the student’s chances of teen childbearing or welfare dependency.
It’s crucial, then, that we recruit new teachers who hold high expectations for their students, and that we cultivate this attribute in practicing teachers. But how?
First, hiring committees can look for evidence that teacher candidates hold high expectations. A 2016 study on hiring practices in Washington, D.C. Public Schools found that, besides certain background characteristics (like SAT/ACT scores), performance on a job interview and mock teaching lesson strongly predicted teacher effectiveness. Hiring committees can inquire about prospective teachers’ classroom expectations and observe how they are revealed in the mock lesson. For example, hiring managers should observe how teachers probe students’ thinking to uncover misunderstandings and whether candidates demonstrate the belief that students should do most of the thinking and speaking about content.
Relatedly, schools might consider using a screener to identify applicants who possess particular dispositions and outlooks. For instance, developers used interview data from highly effective teachers (including their beliefs about student aptitude) to create the Haberman Star Teacher Pre-Screener. It asks potential teachers how they would demonstrate a belief that all children can learn; what they think are the chief causes of student failure; and what their strategies are for helping low-income students. High marks on the questionnaire correlate with improvements in student performance and a greater likelihood of returning to teaching the next year.
But the job of ensuring high expectations is not over once a teacher signs a contract. As Success Academy founder Eva Moskowitz explains, teachers need a clear concept of what mastery means in a particular subject: “Often teachers—and principals—have a definition of excellence that defaults to the best work produced in their classroom or school; if the ‘best’ work is not great, expectations for all their students inevitably shift downwards.”
Having teachers grade the same written example of student work and then discussing their methods and rationales for those marks is one way to begin setting consistently high standards. Indeed, this is what graders for Advanced Placement exams do every summer.
Another idea is collecting and sharing data on students’ grades so that teachers know how they compare with their peers in their grading. Teachers may not know that they are “easy graders,” so transparent exercises like these can help to reorient expectations.
Similarly, specific pedagogical strategies that maintain high expectations can be part of the solution. In “Teach Like a Champion,” Doug Lemov describes techniques common in the best teachers’ classrooms, such as “stretching learning.” Here, a teacher probes a correct response to a question with follow-up questions that test for reliability of knowledge, such as asking how students got their answers and for evidence of their conclusions.
Particularly useful are instructional materials that integrate some of the pedagogical strategies and questioning techniques advocated by Lemov and Saphier. For example, the American Modeling Teachers Association provides curriculum guides for science classrooms that include the “stretching learning” strategy. Students observe a scientific phenomenon, model it in groups on whiteboards, and then evaluate their models in a “board meeting.” The latter involves the teacher asking students to explain their work and why and what conclusions can be drawn based on the discovered evidence. An engaging curriculum that uses such strategies helps both teacher and student hold themselves to high standards.
Given how the pandemic has devastated academic trajectories and well-being, raising the bar for all students is a pressing need if they are to recover.
That’s an expectation that all schools should be striving for.
