'Sorta dumb' beliefs fail 65% of students; schools must be rebuilt to not just look--but also feel--different than they are now.

During the opening session of KAL-TECH (the Gates Foundation program for principals, Kansas version) the 260 principals in the room were told, "We're doing a very good job of educating 30 percent of our students. But the goal is to do a very good job with 100 percent. You may have come here hoping to find out bow we are going to do that. No one knows, but if we keep our school system as it is we'll never reach that goal. We're looking to you to figure out the answers."

That got my attention. I wondered what percent of students do we do a really good job with in California. Looking at the statewide CST testing results I saw that about 10 percent of our students scored in the advanced range. Adding in the students who score as proficient, it would seem that we are doing a good job with about 35 percent of our students. By the year 2012 that 35 percent is supposed to turn into 100 percent. If we do things the way we are doing them now, we will not reach that goal.

A grand experiment

One hundred percent of our students doing well ... clearly that's the right goal. Many would argue that it is not attainable. If our schools are not "rebuilt" to not just look--but also feel--different than they are now, those critics will be right. So the question becomes, "How shall our schools be rebuilt?"

No one knows.

No one.

Until we get 100 percent of our students doing well, we are launched on a grand experiment, one that no nation has ever before made a part of its public policy. California officials have said that we will get 100 percent of our students doing well if we fully implement the "nine essential components" of school improvement. We haven't figured out how to de even that.

For example, one of those essential components is to send all teachers to AB 466 training. We don't have enough trainings to do that. If we truly believed that these components would lead to 100 percent of our students "doing well," wouldn't we be willing to fully provide them? The fact that we have not speaks to a component that I believe is of far more importance than any of the nine essential components.

Before we can rebuild our schools to places where 100 percent of our students do succeed, we need to rebuild our belief system. We must believe it can be done. And, if we don't, we'll continue to create "essential components" that will fail because they miss what is essential.

What is truly essential?

No one knows.

No one.

But we can speculate. Our state speculated when the nine essential components were developed. Think tanks speculate when they conduct research on factors that lead to student success and publish those elements. There is much in those efforts that can inform our practice.

Categorizing people, from smart to dumb 

Jeff Howard is an educator who speaks on the issue of individual efficacy. He claims that all of us categorize people into one of five groups: the really smart, the smart, the sorta smart, the kind-of dumb, and the really dumb.

My guess is that lots of people think that the majority of children of poverty fit into the category of "kind-of dumb." Therefore, it follows that 100 percent of students being "sorta smart" is impossible. I think they are wrong. I believe that when it comes to learning, we can replace the bell curve with the "J" curve. Consider the "J"--it starts at the bottom and ends at the top.

I submit as my evidence a study with a sample size of 2. I am the father of Sarah and Scott. Neither is Caucasian. Both, had they not been adopted, would have been children of poverty. Both were tested as gifted in third grade. Both scored as "proficient" or "advanced." When I look into the faces of the 65 percent of students who are not doing as well, I see the eyes of my daughter and my son.

All students successful

A system where all students are successful? It's going to take a lot more than what schools can do by themselves. But it will never happen until we rebuild our own minds and start seeing all children, at the very least, as "kind a smart."

Doing so would be really smart.

When this is accomplished we'll tolerate nothing less than 100 percent of them being proficient and/or advanced. We'll create the components that truly are essential as we solve a great unsolved conundrum: How do we do a really good job with 100 percent of our students? Sixty-five percent of California's students deserve the answer.

George Manthey is a professional learning executive for ACSA.