Imagine a restaurant. The owner gathers the employees and announces:
“Welcome to our grand opening. I want to remind you of our #1 goal.”
Everyone leans forward.
“At this restaurant, we strive to… pass the state health inspection!!”
This would be weird.
Sure, the health inspection is important. But it’s a requirement – not a goal. It’s a minimum expectation. We check it off and and then we move on.
A restaurant’s real goal involves making great food, delighting customers, and providing outstanding service.
Goals go beyond the minimum. A requirement is the minimum.
Standards Are Not A Goal
This same situation plays out at schools when leaders say:
At our school, we strive to meet or exceed grade level standards!
Standards are something to check off. A minimum. They are not your goal.
Ok. We Met The Requirement. Now What?
You see the problem when a parent asks:
My child is already exceeding standards. What are you doing for her?
This is a pretty obvious question, right? Every school has students who can already meet standards. They have students who can meet next year’s standards.
Some schools don’t realize this because… well, no one checks! Read more about this problem here.
A restaurant can value cleanliness. But once the kitchen is clean, they move onto the real goal. We don’t just keep cleaning and cleaning and cleaning!
Meeting standards is important. But once a student can do it, we don’t keep practicing the thing they can already do.
Goals Go Beyond The Minimum
Imagine a school with this attitude:
Yes, of course we’re going to meet standards. Some students are already there! But our goal is to make darn sure every kid falls in love with one great book this year.
Now that’s a goal.
Bizarre Incentives
Plus, when a restaurant focuses only on passing the health inspection, it sets up bizarre incentives.
Chefs will be discouraged from cooking because, well… cooking creates a mess! And our goal is to pass the health inspection!
So let’s just use these prepackaged, microwave dishes.
Ridiculous, yet I hear things like:
Oh, we can’t read novels (play chess, do art, put on a play) because we have to focus on standards.
Early in my speaking career, I laid out an epic unit about narrative writing. When I presented it, one person said:
Well, our state test only allows one page for narrative writing. So we can’t do all of this.
Ugh. This educator believed their students were limited by a state test 😞
When we obsess over a minimum requirement, that minimum will turn into the maximum.
So, sure, your students will meet the standards. But, what then?