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[Remarks of Hayes Mizell on September 10, 2000 at a meeting of teams from the Corpus Christi, Long Beach, and San Diego school systems assisted by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. The meeting was held at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor, NY. Participants on the teams included school board members, a superintendent, an assistant superintendent, central office staff responsible for middle school reform, staff development coaches, and principals and teachers. Participants also included several community representatives from Louisville. Mizell is Director of the Program for Student Achievement at the Foundation.]

Is what you're cookin'
what your students are smellin'?


Each September when school begins, most teachers spend some time reviewing what students should have learned the previous year. This review process may take days, weeks, or months, depending on a teacher's assessment of the students' levels of knowledge and skill. A teacher may discover that during the previous grade some students were never taught what the teacher assumes the students should know and be able to do. The teacher may also find that other students had appropriate instruction the past school year, but during the summer months the students forgot what they learned because they had no occasion to use it.

This evening I find myself in a position similar to the teacher of a new class. Sixty-five percent of you from Corpus Christi, Long Beach, Louisville, and San Diego have never been to one of these annual meetings at the Macy Conference Center. This is probably your first direct experience with the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and its Program for Student Achievement.

While I am confident that your colleagues who are veterans of these gatherings have briefed you on the Foundation's middle school reform initiative, I am not sure what you really know or, more importantly, what you understand. I suppose we could give you a test to find out what you know, and if we did, it would have to be an open response assessment. We will not do that, however, because the focus of this meeting is not to assess what you know or how you are using what you know, but to help you develop and subsequently apply new insights and understanding.

Unlike many other meetings you attend, we will not subject you to hour after hour of direct instruction that assumes your behaviors will change simply because you hear a speaker who is inspiring, or entertaining, or highly knowledgeable about a particular subject. Instead, as you can see from the agenda, we believe that you can learn more from each other than you can from us or from a didactic presentation by a renown speaker.

This meeting, then, is a constructivist experience, and it comes at a cost. You cannot be passive, you cannot "tune out." You have to be engaged, and willing to contribute as well as listen. You have to put aside easy rhetoric, glib generalities, and defensive, and defeatist, and blaming attitudes that pervade so many discussions about how to increase student learning.

What the Program for Student Achievement is all about

I suspect many of you are wondering what the Program for Student Achievement is all about. You may have heard that we are interested in standards. Maybe you have participated in professional development the Foundation has supported. Or perhaps you think we are just providing support to help improve your middle schools. Let me correct those impressions.

First, the Program for Student Achievement is about students. Students are the people we want to benefit from the Foundation's grants to your school systems and organizations. Students matter more than anyone or anything in public education. How students perform is a barometer of a school's effectiveness. If students perform poorly, it means schools are performing poorly. If students are performing well, it means schools are performing well. The reality is that most schools perform well for some students and the same schools perform poorly for other students.

Too few schools demonstrate that they are willing to do whatever it takes, and I do mean whatever it takes, to perform well for all students. There are such schools, but few others seek to learn from them or have the will to apply the principles and practices that make the achieving schools effective. I know many people reject this simple construct of school and student performance, and that is why so many schools continue not to meet the learning needs of so many students. Students have to come first, and their performance has to be the gauge by which schools measure their effectiveness.

We believe there are thousands of students in your school systems who have the intellectual capacity and the need to perform at much higher academic levels. They need to do so because if they learn how to conquer content they now believe is difficult, it will prepare them to milk their secondary education for all it is worth, it will put them on the path to obtain additional education after high school, and it will reward them with meaningful options when they seek work.

Most young adolescents cannot see this horizon, but you can. You can and you should encourage, cajole, harangue, and preach to students to help them understand that the investment of their effort now can produce big returns in the future. We all know, however, that most of this will fall on deaf ears. Students will be far more impressed by what you do than by what you say. Students benefit when they see you using your authority to establish school cultures with high standards of performance for both educators and students. Standards matter when you translate them from words to deeds that help educators and students achieve more that they ever thought was possible.

School districts must be committed to students -- first

We believe, then, that students come first. School systems have to be committed to that proposition. School systems do not exist to be employment agencies or provide fringe benefits. School systems do not exist to develop policy manuals or issue administrative directives. School systems do not exist to be political playpens for adults. School systems exist for students, and unless every year, every student is learning and achieving more than he or she did the previous year, school systems are not doing their jobs.

What does this rather hard line mean in terms of your relationship with the Foundation? It means that if you are a school board member or central office leader and you spend less than 75 percent of your time and energy on issues that directly shape, support, and improve student learning, we wonder what in the world you are doing. It means that if you are a teacher or administrator who participates in professional development funded by the Foundation, it is because we believe it is important for educators to develop and apply new attitudes, knowledge, skills, and behaviors that will improve student learning.

If professional development does not benefit students, and if there is not evidence that students benefit, we are disappointed. If you participate in a Foundation-funded project that helps parents and citizens learn more about their schools and become more active in improving their schools, it is because we believe that communities are just as responsible for increasing student learning as are schools. If parent and citizen involvement does not benefit students, and if there is not evidence that it benefits students, we are not satisfied.

There's really only one goal for public schools

Second, the Program for Student Achievement is about increasing the learning of all students. We know this goal is difficult to reach as is providing credible evidence that students are really learning at higher levels. Yet, we believe this must be the goal of public schools, and that schools must focus all their efforts on this goal and on collecting and sharing credible evidence that they are achieving it. More specifically, we really do expect that between the first day that students enter the sixth grade and the day they leave the eighth grade, each year they should increase significantly their performance levels in mathematics, science, language arts, and social studies. We do not accept that an achievement dip is inevitable in the middle grades, or that attention to students' emotional and social needs is incompatible with attention to their academic needs. Both are important; students learn more when they simultaneously experience higher academic expectations and more intensive personal support.

Third, the Program for Student Achievement is about results. We know there can be no results without process; that is, without a sequence of dialogue, decisions, plans, and actions that produce results. We recognize that good process is necessary for good results. But we also know that in many school systems and schools there is not high quality process, or there is endless process, and the evidence of that is poor results, or no results at all. When it comes to your need to meet and meet and plan and plan, we are understanding, we are tolerant, and we are patient, but we are not deaf and blind. One way or another we learn what the process yields. We not only expect results, we expect results that benefit students. This is to say that we are not impressed with what you say you are going to do, or what you describe on paper, or even with your site-based plans for school improvement. These only become credible in the light of subsequent results supported by evidence that your efforts have benefited students.

We also believe in accountability . . .

There are, of course, many ways the Foundation could choose to try to advance student achievement in the middle grades, but in 1994 it decided to encourage a few urban school systems to use academic standards as a means to focus and improve teaching and learning. You will recognize that 1994 was slightly ahead of the curve of states' widespread development and promulgation of standards. We began with six school systems, but over time the Foundation chose not to continue funding three of them. The school systems that you represent are currently the only ones assisted by the Foundation. This indicates we also believe in accountability.

The development and use of content and performance standards is not a comprehensive strategy and we do not intend it to be. Developing standards is not enough to increase student achievement. Disseminating standards or posting them in every classroom will not cause students to perform at higher levels. Standards are necessary for teachers, and administrators, and students, and families, and communities to understand what students should know and be able to do, but that is only the first step. The more difficult tasks are to align and reform curriculum, instruction, assessment, and staff development to cause students to perform at standard.

Do you smell what the Rock is cookin'?

In the world of popular culture, there is a very interesting fellow called "The Rock." For those of you who are not familiar with this entertainer, he is a charismatic professional wrestler with a huge public following. The Rock has several intriguing public relations gimmicks and one of these is a question he uses to challenge his opponents as well as excite his fans: He shouts, "Do you smell what The Rock is cook'in?"

Well, if your standards are what your school systems are "cook'in", they may not be not what your students are "smell'in." There may be a disconnect between the standards that your school systems say students should meet and the curriculum and instruction your school systems are providing. Your curriculum-written lessons, activities, exercises, assignments, and supporting materials-may not provide the level of content or the rigor that cause students to develop the knowledge and skills they need to perform at standard. The quality of instruction in your schools may not engage all students in opportunities to learn what they need to perform at standard. Classroom assessments may not be rooted in performance standards. As a result, teachers, students, and families have no idea whether students can demonstrate the proficiencies that indicate the students know and are able to do what the school system or the state expects.

The results of professional development may indicate it is falling far short in helping teachers and administrators develop and apply the skills they need to ensure that students benefit from standards-based curriculum, instruction, assessment, and staff development. What your school systems are "cook'in" is represented by your content and performance standards. What your students are "smell'in" is indicated by their performance on standards-based assessments, or the closest thing to them. If your students are not "smell'in" what your school systems are "cook'in," then you need to devote even greater efforts to identifying, tracing, and eliminating the gaps that are preventing students from performing at standard.

The real way to "do" standards

Your school systems are among a very small number that are seriously trying to use standards to improve the education of all students. There are many school systems that are using standards, in most cases because their states insist on it, but few of these school systems seek to reform curriculum, instruction, assessment, and staff development so these become interconnected moving parts that cause all students to perform at standard. This is your challenge.

In each of your school systems, some of the components of standards-based reform are much stronger and more effective than they were five years ago, but they are still separate parts, sometimes even working at cross purposes. Your challenge is not to merely implement standards. Your challenge is not just for schools and students to be more accountable for their performance. Your challenge is to develop and activate a standards-based system in which you focus and align all its components to achieve the goal of nearly all students performing at standard. As you are learning, standards-based reform really means whole system reform, not just a tweak here and a tuck there.

Your school districts are not yet exemplars of this kind of systemic, standards-based reform, and do not yet have the student performance results to demonstrate that you are, but you can point to many solid accomplishments. You have mounted multiple intervention and support programs to better meet the academic needs of students who have the greatest difficulty performing at standard. You have provided school-based staff developers who work with teachers in their classrooms to help them learn how to engage students in standards-based lessons. You have reconstituted some persistently low-performing schools to provide students with more effective administrators and teachers.

There are many school systems that are using standards,
in most cases because their states insist on it,
but few of these school systems seek to
reform curriculum, instruction, assessment, and staff development
so these become interconnected moving parts that cause
all students to perform at standard.

Some of your school systems have recognized the literacy crisis in the middle grades and have launched major initiatives to improve students' basic reading skills and raise their comprehension levels. To communicate to your teachers, students, and families that your school systems are serious about standards, you have either developed standards-based report cards or are in the process of doing so. These actions are simple to describe but they are complex to execute effectively. The fact that you have done so is evidence that your school systems want to use standards to leverage reforms that will benefit students.

A critic might reasonably ask whether all this attention to standards is really necessary. Is it possible to provide students with a more challenging, engaging education without standards-based reform? The answer is no, and yes. Educators who believe in their students -- who believe that regardless of the students' family background or economic status or race or language the students are capable of performing at high levels in at least some subjects -- these educators push and support their students to meet high academic standards. This has always been true, and everyone in this room can identify at least one teacher in their past who fits this description. Standards in those days were not in writing, but the teachers knew what they wanted their students to know and be able to do as a result of their education. The problem was that only some teachers had such high standards and that led to the current efforts to codify standards to guide teaching and learning for all students. Yes, standards are essential, and they always have been.

We must avoid a new orthodoxy -- and keep it simple

However, there is a danger that standards-based reform will become a new orthodoxy, shrouded in a language all its own, guarded by acolytes of correctness, and accompanied by rituals that are so complex that no ordinary teacher or administrator can makes sense of them. Some things in education really are simple. There is no substitute for energetic, caring teachers who are excited about their subjects and who, because of their commitment to their subjects and their students, become masters of the content they teach. There is no substitute for principals and assistant principals who are not content to be building managers but have the courage to become education leaders who do whatever it takes to ensure that both adults and students in their schools perform at high levels.

There is no substitute for teachers and administrators who do not shrink from critical self-assessments of their own performance, and who relentlessly learn and apply practices that demonstrably benefit students. There is no substitute for educators who take seriously the admonition of the Apostle Paul, "Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind." These people are the meat and potatoes of good education and standards-based reforms cannot replace them or compensate for their absence. Indeed, standards make it all the more necessary for you to find and develop and support educators so they are all like this. If your school systems are not attending to this task, all your efforts to implement standards will be for naught.

Struggling with your demons

Sometimes, of course, there is a chasm between what you and your school systems must do to significantly increase student performance and what you and your school systems actually do. Like all educators, indeed, like all people, you struggle with your demons, or you do not struggle enough. These demons take many forms, but the result is that you do not always do what you should do to change practices that prevent your students from performing at standard or at levels even higher than your current standards. For example, you may say that you do not know what to do, but you do not take the initiative to seek out other experiences and lessons that may be instructive. Or perhaps you know what you should do but in the face of real or imagined bureaucratic or political constraints at the district or school level, you ask for neither permission nor forgiveness.

Then there is the three-headed demon of endless excuses, wishful thinking, and no follow-through. It is so easy to find legitimate reasons not to take action: too little time, not enough money, nobody cares as much as you do, too many other "priorities," and on and on and on. In other cases, you express good intentions, even commitments to act, but they seem to vaporize when it comes to follow-through. No matter what has been said or written or promised, sometimes little or nothing happens. But there is also wishful thinking, hoping that your reforms will achieve good results, but failing to draw on your good common sense and wealth of experience as you develop implementation plans. Even though you know better than anyone how schools work and what teachers value, you do not always take that into account, implementation falters, and programs with good potential do not benefit students.

Finally, there is the demon of self-satisfaction. Because you have embraced systemic, standards-based reform more seriously than most school systems, and because you have taken major steps to bring reforms to fruition, you are leaders in this field. It would not be surprising if you feel that you have done enough, and that you should be able to relax. The problem is that the Foundation, and others, measure your reforms not by how innovative they are or even by how hard you have worked to implement them, but by their effects on students. Can you demonstrate that they have caused significantly greater proportions of students from all demographic groups to perform at standard? Can you provide evidence that your reforms are enabling students with the greatest academic disadvantages to make achievement gains disproportionate to those of other students? Until you can, relaxing will have to wait.

As you can see from this meeting's agenda, we are not here to relax. This is a time to exorcise demons and learn from others. While you are approaching the beginning of the end of your relationship with the Foundation, you are only at the end of the beginning of standards-based reform. Much remains to be done.

Three actions that can help insure success

One year from now we will ask you to return to the Macy Conference Center to report on what your schools have accomplished and learn during six years of systemic, standards-based reforms. In the interim, during the 2000-2001 school year, it is important for you to do three things:

Build on what you have achieved to date, and learn from the mistakes you have made to date, to put in place the systemic, standards-based reforms that will cause higher proportions of students to perform at standard by the end of the eighth grade in June 2001. You will recall that back in 1995 your school systems established June 2001 as the date by which a specific proportion of students completing the eighth grade would perform at standard in mathematics, science, language arts, and social studies. Your school systems, not the Program for Student Achievement, established your respective performance targets and since then one school system has amended theirs, but those targets continue to represent the goals your school systems are trying to achieve. How close will you be by next June? How far from the goals will you be, and why? We look forward to seeing you here next year to find out.

Reflect on, assess, and document what your school systems and middle schools accomplished between September 1995 and June 2001, and determine how you will engage internal and external audiences in dialog about the progress you made and what you have yet to achieve. Unless you make intentional efforts to capture your past and learn from it, you will not gain all you can from your years of experience. This is something school systems seldom do, and it is one reason they continue to make the same mistakes over and over gain, as well as fail to sustain and build on the genuine achievements they have made. Do not let this happen to you. During this school year devote time and effort to how you will and your constituencies can sort out, learn from, and use your six years of experience.

Begin to consider, discuss, and plan for what will happen to systemic, standards-based reform in your school systems and your middle schools after your relationship with the Foundation ends. When January 2002 arrives, will that be the end of your focus on making the systemic and school reforms necessary to cause young adolescents to perform at standard? Will your hard work and the momentum you have built during the previous six years simply wither away? This is usually what happens. School systems typically do not create internal or external mechanisms for the specific purpose of keeping the focus on reform and continuing to drive it forward. Can you do better? Can you push your communities, your school boards, and yourselves to consider the levels of performance that students entering the second grade this year should demonstrate by the time they leave the eighth grade in June 2007?

How will your school systems and schools have to change to cause those second graders to perform at the levels you believe are necessary when they leave the eighth grade? I hope that during this school year you will begin to think about whether your commitments to higher levels of performance, manifest in systemic and school reforms that cause students to perform at standard, can extend beyond your relationship with the Foundation, and if so, how.

Beyond patchwork reforms

What you do this year to move beyond patchwork reforms to a true system of standards-based reform is important because that is what it will take for many more of your students to perform at standard. Only you can create the system of interconnected moving parts-reforms in curriculum, instruction, assessment and professional development-focused on significantly increasing student performance. Only you can attend to the meat and potatoes of good education, finding and developing caring teachers and administrators who believe that all students can perform at much higher levels and who are devoted to achieving that result. Not all of us have the knowledge it takes or the guts it takes, but we are here, seeking more understanding and more courage. Let us help one another, because students matter more that anyone or anything.

Thank you.