Beating the Low Expectations Syndrome

A study revealed that in the 2012–13 school year, for the first time in fifty years, more than half of American public school children lived in low-income families.

—Dale Russakoff, The Prize

After hearing Jaime Casap, Google's Chief Education Evangelist, speak at the 2015 SXSWedu conference in Austin, I flew to Philadelphia for a one-hour conversation with him. That hour was worth every dollar of the trip.

He told me that he was born in 1969 to a single mother who fled the violence and terror in Argentina after the 1966 revolution. Ironically, she arrived in Hell's Kitchen, on the West Side of New York City.

The harsh realities of street violence and living on welfare were simply ambient noise in Jaime's life. The struggle for survival turned personal the first day of class at PS 111.⁴ When the teacher called his name, Jaime replied, “Que?” He recalls that as that moment when he realized that he did not fit in. And fitting in was necessary to survive.

During our interview he observed that the atmosphere of violence became more personal as he got older, “I went to more funerals in high school than most people go to in two lifetimes.” The conditions of Hell's Kitchen served as motivation to get out. He knew that the best way to do that was through education.

Jaime's journey points to the power and potential of education touching and transforming a life. That's why, in July 2015, Jaime was invited by First Lady Michelle Obama to share his story in the White House at the Beat the Odds Summit. He told the audience of 140 students (who also overcame tough challenges and were college bound) the following.

I'll be the first to admit it wasn't always easy. There are distractions and enticements all around you. Those minding the dead-end roads will work hard to lure you with assurances of quick power and riches. You need to have your own distractions.

You also need a pair of very thick and solid “reality distortion glasses.” Everything around you shrieks, “You will not make it!” All you see, read, and hear will proclaim, “You are not meant to succeed. You don't belong here.”

Those who argue, “Just go to school and keep out of trouble” clearly don't understand what it's like to grow up in our environment. You don't need to look for trouble. Trouble finds a way to get to you. You have to be stronger than most people understand.

Do not, I repeat, do not wait for anyone to believe in you. Believe in yourself, strap on your glasses, and prove them all wrong!

Often we ask our students the wrong question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I don't like this question. First, there is a very good chance your “job” doesn't exist yet. Second, I do not expect kids growing up in communities like Hell's Kitchen to tell me that they want to be a microbiologist or a sustainable materials architect.

Instead, I want to ask you, “What problem do you want to solve?”

I want you to think about the knowledge, skills, and abilities you need to solve this problem.

When I ask you to think about what problem you want to solve, I am asking you to take ownership of your learning. I am asking you to begin to create mastery for the most critical skills you will need. I want to give you the opportunity to think about purpose.⁵

A Day in the Life

What is it like to work in a Survival School? Teachers soon learn that kids bring their pain to class. They also realize that nothing in their training prepares them for that pain. I want you to meet some teachers and read their stories.

Alyssa teaches at an alternative school in Baltimore. If a student gets kicked out of his or her assigned school the alternative school is their last resort. Alyssa's school population is 85 percent African American, 10 percent Hispanic, and other ethnic groups make up the rest. The school has one white student. Alyssa, who has 26 students and teaches English, told me, “A lesson plan can take two weeks in this school because I have to address so many different needs. A good day is when the kids follow instructions and pay attention. When they show interest it feels like my work is making a difference.”

These days are not the norm.

One of my worst days was the day I tried to show a New York Times documentary about a maximum-security-prison baseball team. It was a lesson on the power of unity. It is an inspiring story. I was planning to use baseball as a metaphor in their lives. Instead one boy jumped up and turned over his desk. He said, “F—'n no way, I'm not doing this!” He ran out of the classroom.

I tracked his caseworker down and learned that his brother was just sent to prison. The movie was the last thing he wanted to see. It was a trigger. Steinbeck is so irrelevant here . . .

Many of my better days are simply setting aside the lesson and talking about our lives.

We have paramedics called three or four times a week. A lot of these kids have grown up together so they bring their baggage with them. I had two students whose moms did drugs together and one owed the other money—so they fought about it. One picked up a hole-puncher and threw it in my direction. It shattered the door. It happened so quickly. Nothing is super premeditated.

I was hired on the Monday of new teacher orientation. If I were to do this over I would have liked some training on how these interventions work. There is a method to it. I would have also liked to get bios on my students a few months before school. Who are these kids?

I'm not sure about their futures. I don't have a lot of hope for some of them. They just repeat the cycle, stuck in what they know, experience and are surrounded by. We simply put all of the same kids who think the same way in the same box together. They've never seen anyone who has broken out, beaten the odds.

These kids have grown up with a victim mindset. They are told over and over they don't have a chance. The message is, they are less and so we expect them to do less. When they hit even the slightest obstacle there is no reason to rise up and overcome. They expect failure but not the learning kind. Only two of my 26 kids have a father in their lives.

The big lesson for me is that I had to learn how to do life with my kids. Jaynie is one of the sweetest students I've had. She's called Big Body and she shines love on people. At the beginning of the year she had multiple drug charges. Her grandma was the dealer. Jaynie's been clean for six months. What turned her around was the threat of 16 months' jail time. I think she's going to make it. It has taken a village. Mom is not in the picture; dad is long gone. Teachers have picked her up when Jaynie couldn't get a ride and taken homework to her. I wish I had more stories like hers.

The Toll on Good Teachers

Will is an Eagle Scout and a William and Mary graduate. He majored in public policy and trained in early childhood learning. His experience is similar to Alyssa's. Will said that two of the schools where he taught were not high functioning.

The teachers had no voice and dared offer no ideas. Both schools were built on fear and control.

Ninth grade seemed to be a pivotal year. There is a lot of pressure for “social promotion,” to keep kids in their age cohort. Even if kids are reading at a second- and third-grade level.

These kids develop incredible coping mechanisms. If you can't read you are going to throw up a lot of blocking and distractions. You will float through and simply focus on fun or getting high. A lot of energy gets channeled into preserving self-image. A kid won't try so you won't know he can't read. It's better to be labeled as bad or a troublemaker than stupid.

Will, who studied specifically to teach in at-risk communities, is leaving after five years. He's burnt out and considering moving to the policy side of the war.

Dwight was part of a 2015 SXSWedu panel titled Transforming Schools Using Brain Science.⁶ At the time he was a fifth-grade teacher. Of his 16 students, 5 were functioning at a third-grade level, 4 were in special education, 2 were advanced in math, and 2 were average. “The academic issues were only the beginning. Life was the real issue.”

One of his advanced math students was emotionally disturbed from psychological and sexual abuse. He was suspended for urinating in the classroom. Dwight asked him what happened. “I told her that I had to go real bad. She told me if I had to go that bad then use the trash can.”

Three of his students were homeless. Two kids had very supportive and active parents and two no support at all; they stayed out all night and ate poorly.

The repercussions of neglect, homelessness and abuse define the daily reality for class. The slightest correction can send kids into crisis. One student exploded, all because he could not understand a math problem. Another student had a bad night because his parents were arguing at each other so he watched Animal Planet all night. When he came to class he simply put his head on the desk and took a nap. “You've got to sleep some time.”

Survival Mode

Journalist Paul Tough has observed, “. . . children who grow up in stressful environments generally find it harder to concentrate, harder to sit still, harder to rebound from disappointments, and harder to follow directions. And that has a direct effect on their performance in school. When you're overwhelmed by uncontrollable impulses and distracted by negative feelings, it's hard to learn the alphabet.”⁷

A missing piece to these discussions is that these kids can't learn. It's not that they don't have the intelligence. Many are bright and eager to learn. It's also not enough to simply say life gets in the way. The obstacle is more fundamental. Their brains are in survival mode—fight or flight. The neglect, abuse, instability, and chaos these kids live with create perpetual vigilance, an always-on alert condition. That means the adrenal gland secretes that on-edge readiness along with cortisol, which shuts down all nonessential functions like learning. Learning can't take place. In fact the stress of trying to focus on something new and challenging can be the spark that sets off a combustible response in one kid; that spark quickly ignites the class.

Is Education Rigged?

According to Stanford professor Sean Reardon, “The achievement gap between children from high- and low-income families is roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty-five years earlier. In fact, it appears that the income achievement gap has been growing for at least 50 years. . . .⁸

Education is the mythical starting line in a race for success and happiness. But, what if the race is rigged? What if zip code predetermines winners and losers?

Imagine that your daughter goes out for track and field as a cross-country runner. But she is not allowed to train, must stay up late most nights to study, has never seen what a successful runner looks like, eats junk food as a daily diet, and isn't taught the rules. Furthermore, when she arrives for her first race, she is forced to wear heavy boots and carry a hefty backpack.

Next to your child is a kid whose parents both competed in track at a collegiate level. Her bedroom has posters of her track heroes and she has watched thrilling competitions over and over again. She had a coach when she was five and her parents run with her in the evening. Does your daughter have a chance?

Let's run a similar education race between two kids. One is in the top income quartile, based on the U.S. Census ($75,000 + annual income) and the other in the bottom half ($25,000 and less for a household of four) (see Figure 9.2).

Each child begins with the same amount of school funding. In fact, the low-income child will probably have direct and indirect access to additional federal and state funding. The difference is what happens outside and around school.

“Starting-line disparities hamstring educational mobility. Among first-grade students performing in the top academic quartile, only 28 percent are from lower-income families, while 72 percent are from higher-income families.”⁹

Reardon's research reaches an astounding conclusion: Kids at the bottom start the race far behind, and school does little to change that. The narrow gap observed in early years widens simply because learning complexity grows. “At K-1 a child in the bottom half starts one year behind. By elementary school it widens to three years; in high school the gap is insurmountable at six years behind.”¹⁰

Rice University's Glasscock School of Continuing Studies' report, The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3, concludes, “After four years these differences in parent-child interactions produced significant discrepancies in not only children's knowledge, but also their skills and experiences with children from high-income families being exposed to 30 million more words than children from families on welfare. Follow-up studies showed that these differences in language and interaction experiences have lasting effects on a child's performance later in life.¹¹ “In low-income neighborhoods there is one book for 300 children. In middle-income communities there are 13 per child!”¹²

Many studies mark third-grade reading as a critical predictor of future success. “In 2011, 82 percent of fourth-graders from low-income families—and 84 percent of low-income students who attend high-poverty schools—failed to reach the ‘proficient’ level in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).”¹³ The same challenge of starting and staying behind for low-income kids applies to math.

An even stronger predictor of future success is fifth-grade math skills. “Analyzing data from six long-term studies, they found the strongest predictor of later achievement to be children's school-entry math skills, followed by reading and ability to pay attention. The big surprise was that math skills ranked as the most important predictor of school success.”¹⁴ “Sixth graders with . . . a failing grade in math, or a failing grade in English had only a 10 percent chance of graduating within four years of entering high school. . . .”¹⁵

The Parent Factor

In Reardon's research he found that the gap in the funds that parents dedicate to their kids' education has, over the past three decades, widened dramatically between lower and upper income families. In 1973 lower-income parents spent about $830 per child per year while upper-income parents spent four times that amount. By 2006 low-income families were able to spend $1,300 compared to $9,000 for upper income kids (some of this came as a result of trading mom's time in the workplace for money).

Robert Putnam tells it plainly: “Kids from upper-class backgrounds are once again widening their lead in the race that matters most. Kids from low-income backgrounds . . . are working more or less diligently to improve their prospects in life, but no matter how talented and hardworking they are, at best they are improving their play at checkers, while upper-class kids are widening their lead at three-dimensional chess.”¹⁶

The Education Machine cannot address these kinds of disparities. These are one-off kids. Sure, they come out of conditions that have similar debilitating attributes. But don't miss how each child's mix of neglect, abuse, chaos, trauma, health deficits, and so on calls for attentive cultivation. But instead they get bulldozer treatment.

Any objective review of K–12 education in America would conclude that we have certainly been paying, but not paying attention, for those low-income students who must cope with an education game that is rigged. For many, that reality is the cumulative outcome of multigenerational failure. Their parents, their grandparents, and sometimes their whole community and family network were forced out of the education game. They were not bad or irresponsible people: they just saw that the winners and losers were already designated. So, they did what they could to support themselves and those who depended on them. They found work where they could.

It is time to care, to give an honest damn, about the students who live with insufficient money, health care, home, peace, and practical and multigenerational support for their journey. The Education Machine cannot do that. That is why, throughout the second half of this book, we'll explore what can be done and who can do it. And that must start with helping those in the bottom of the quintiles and indices of life.

I started this chapter at Kostoryz Elementary in Corpus Christ. That school went from an institution hell-bent on improving test scores to a fully engaged human learning environment. We met two kids there who had previously been “outsourced.” They were both diagnosed on the Autism spectrum. When we visited the classes three weeks into the new school year they were both integrated into their classes—happy, engaged, contributing, and learning. Their classmates didn't treat them any differently from anyone else. Because of Lisa's and my experience with our kids, this was a very moving experience for me. I thought, “Here I am in an elementary school ranked 4,041 out of 4,128 in the state, and this is a more humane, connected, and uplifting experience than anything I encountered with my daughter in the number one ranked school in the state.”

We circled back to Kostoryz Elementary after year one of the new active learning model. The teachers demonstrated 62 percent growth in the 16 best practices which included small group instruction, formative feedback, future-ready skills, standards-aligned design, differentiation (tailoring instruction to student differences), and scaffolding (taking kids progressively up a ladder to mastery). In the same period students experienced a 20 percent gain in math scores from 4th to 5th grade and a 26 percent gain in reading scores from 4th to 5th grade on state standardized assessments.

Healthy Communities = Healthy Schools

Fifty percent of our kids start behind, and stay behind. And that gap is widening. And, incredibly, here in the twenty-first century there does not appear to be anything narrowing the gap. But, back in the middle of the last century, J. Irwin Miller recognized a fundamental truth. In order to have a healthy company, he needed a healthy community. That begins with healthy schools. What was true for Columbus, Indiana, and has proven true for 60 years is true for every community. According to Gallup's Brandon Busteed, “Corporate leaders are desperate to find talent ready for the workplace but only 11 percent of CEO's feel that the students coming out of our institutions are properly prepared.”¹⁷

Will corporate leaders be able to make the same leap that Miller took and reframe their focus from shareholder value to stakeholder engagement? Education as a catalyst and steward of learning provides the basis for a sustainable future.

The teachers and administrators we have seen who have bridged the gap and are raising survival schools out of their death spiral start with early warning systems and human-based interventions. They set a culture of high expectations, work to engage parents and the community, invest in extra-curricular activities, place equal emphasis on social and emotional learning for both kids and teachers, and shift the ownership of success to the kids.

The Learning and Life Connection

In November 2015, Barbara Barnes, author of It's the Kids—Forty Years of Innovation in How We Educate Our Children, joined the MindShift team for our San Diego summit. She shared the extraordinary story (also told in her book) of 21st Century Prep in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

It all started in 1989, when Barbara invited futurist Joel Barker to speak at a California educational conference that she designed. One evening after the last session, as Joel interacted informally with some teachers, he presented an educational concept he had developed called “EFG—Ecological, Futures, and Global.” Something galvanized the teachers (in fact, they continued to meet informally, and at their own expense, for several years). And Barbara immediately saw the value of Joel's idea; she knew they had to find a school wherein they could build a prototype of the EFG model.

In 1991, the informal teachers group formed an educational conference in England; Joel attended and shared the EFG concept in more detail. One of the conferees was an official with the Chattanooga, Tennessee, City School District. In 1993, that district closed a junior high school that was failing. Then the school buildings and grounds were converted to a K–12 magnet school. All teachers and staff had to apply for positions in the new school. It would be called 21st Century Prep. The Chattanooga official invited Barbara and Joel to use EFG for the school curriculum. They both joined the effort.

Prospective students had to apply if they wanted to attend. Based on the zip code demographics, the school administrators expected an even split between Caucasian and African American students. But when the students began applying, it became clear that African American students would comprise at least 65 percent of the new student body. At that point, white flight began. Before long 21st Century Prep became an all-black school.

The first year was, consistent with one of Joel's signature concepts, a true “paradigm shift.” True “mastery” was required in order for a student to be promoted to the next level of learning. Every student had to commit to a long-term novel-writing project. All parents had to provide 18 hours of service to the school each year (and the school was very serious about that; Joel told me that four students were not promoted because their parents did not serve the requisite hours).

At the end of that first school year, the school had a waiting list of white families wanting to enroll. Why? Because of their innovative approach: “students, who had failed at other schools, saw the connection between school and the rest of their lives. . . . This school demonstrated that investigative, applied learning motivated students, significantly improved learning and increased test scores.”¹⁸

Now, that is a story we should see on our theater or TV screens: the students of an all-black K–12 school created such a great story of achievement and academic excellence that the white parents began lining up for the chance of getting their kids enrolled at 21st Century Prep! In so doing, they confirmed once again that most humans—regardless of their zip code—love, honor, protect, and reach for the same things.

Humanizing the System

At-risk kids are the most vulnerable students inside a system that tries to deliver efficient service by taking away the elements of learning that make it human. It is no longer just our underserved communities who feel the oppressive nature of the Education Machine. Leo Linbeck is right when he says, “We are all at risk.” It is not just our kids, but our nation.” The next chapter explains how the education system has taken on a life of its own. Without constant vigilance to constrain its appetite for efficiency and control it will continue to remove what makes learning human.