and they would cast their fate on the
sea they had nothing to look to with the
Stars to guide them safely home can you
imagine for a moment what they must have
felt on a dark night out on the ocean as
they watched a storm gather and they
watched the stars one-by-one become
obscured by clouds and they saw the
ocean become less and less familiar and
more and more disorienting as the waves
began to pitch and the clouds begin to
thunder and lightning around them and
they knew that this storm could blow
them far off course if you understand
that you understand what it’s like for
every school teacher in every school
principal the day test scores come out
because that’s very much how we feel you
see our storms aren’t storms of wind and
waves our storms or storms of numbers
and we face these storms very uncertain
sometimes at my background being a high
school English teacher then a principal
and now working in the test prep
industry I understand how these storms
can affect the lives of both our
students and our teachers varying
results are the theme of our existence
you see it’s really interesting because
every election cycle every politician is
going to reform education we’re finally
going to pass legislation that will help
hold teachers more accountable for their
test results that will help hold failing
schools more accountable to make changes
and ultimately that will certainly turn
things around and save the world
interestingly we hear this every
election cycle and every time we see
test scores come out we’re faced with
the same problems that the results still
very just a few numbers for you if you
look in Arkansas sixty-four percent of
our students took the a.c.t last year
but the average composite score was 20.2
just give you a frame of reference to
get into Arkansas State with
unconditional admission they need you to
have a 21 that means that the majority
of our students were not meeting the
minimum admission score if you just take
that a little bit further what does that
mean about our test results in education
what is that how do we interpret that
maybe we need to look beyond how things
are when a student is preparing for
college maybe we need to look past that
and look at the ultimate outcome let’s
see if they graduate well we see that
the college completion rate six years
after high school for low income
students it’s only fifty two percent of
the students who start college so we
Satan the results aren’t what we want
the results not only may vary but
apparently have ferried so then we start
to ask ourselves the question well what
do these varying results mean because
surely we have to do something in
response when results vary if you look
people are really interesting because
people’s reactions to varying results
are very predictable they’ll usually
take one of two possible approaches one
group or what I call your hunker in the
bunker type people these are the ones
who say when the results vary we need to
not change anything we have never done
it that way before we don’t need any new
programs we need to lock down we need to
prevent any change you can really pick
out these folks by their language
they’re not going to change us we’re not
going to let the consultants come in
we’re not going to to be change from
what we want to do and and that’s the
mentality they want to close down and
protect the other group tends to be a
little bit of your skys falling we’ve
got to do something we’ve got to try a
new program we have to try a new
curriculum we have to get into
administrator whatever it is whether
it’s good bad we’ve got to do something
and what you find is that no matter what
you do the results still very so we’ve
tried changing the rules we tried
changing the law
also we tried changing the
accountability we’ve even tried all
these different strategies and we find
that still the results vary but then I
have to ask a question is it really that
bad as the test scores and the
politicians would make it seem somehow
despite all the numbers that are thrown
at us in the newspapers despite all the
numbers that we see on Excel
spreadsheets and school reports somehow
the world has managed to move on we
still have jobs we still get married and
have children we still have lives and
thus far we’ve managed not to bring
about the end of the world no promises
for later but up to this point we’ve
done okay so we have to say well if the
results are going to vary and we accept
that as a reality what’s the problem
behind the way we’ve looked at varying
results up to this point I think there
are two premises behind the arguments
that we really need to look deeper at
and examine when we begin to think about
addressing varying results the first
premise is how do we define success can
success be encapsulated by one test
score by one grade report is there a
narrow definition of success the premise
behind this argument that you see is the
success is based on doing a specific
thing in a specific amount of time and
if you fail to complete the tasks that
we give you in the time that we give you
to do it then you are most obviously a
failure because you didn’t do what we
said you should do in the time we said
you should do it in this definition of
success raises a really interesting
question for me about who is the we and
the VAE determining what success is for
our students the other question that I
think are the premise that I think we
have to examine is the idea that success
has a very clear-cut definition and that
that definition comes from outside the
individual that some state agency that
some test that some curriculum sets the
bar for success and that the only way to
be successful is to meet whatever
external requirements are set forth
that organization the again the hidden
premise behind that is anyone who does
not meet this external definition must
obviously be a failure I think the
problem that we have is that we have
tried to fight varying results we’ve
tried to fight the fact that people are
all different we tried to fight the fact
that people learn in different ways and
I think what we’re dealing with is a
broken paradigm if you think about this
from our first day of school we’re told
that you either pass a class or you fail
you either pass a grade or you fail it’s
an interesting paradigm because it gives
you the idea that if you do something
more than once or if you need to do
something again you failed at it it’s an
odd lesson that we teach children
because when we enter into the real
world we know that the real world
rewards perseverance and tenacity and an
ability to approach a problem again from
a different angle but as we educate
students we say if you didn’t get it
right the first time you must have
failed the question I would ask is could
we shift that paradigm just a little bit
could we say that the person who has to
take a test more than once to pass it
might be more successful because they
were determined enough to approach it
again could we say that the child who
needs to go through a grade twice who
may need to get extra help who may need
to get supplemental services could we
say that child is more successful than
the person who achieved without any
effort because they put in the effort
that it took could we say that defining
all of our actions in terms of success
or failure might be a false dichotomy
and that we might need to ask the
question who’s defining the success or
failure anyway you see the problem with
defining every action every class every
test is a success or a failure is that
we create a strong bias and our students
toward in action if the only option is
to succeed and be perfect the first time
you do something or to be deemed a
failure
we’re creating people who are afraid to
act because we’re creating people who
are afraid to fail as someone who’s had
a very diverse career I understand that
failure is an important part of the
process see I started my career as a
high school English teacher and very
much like most high school English
teachers I had the mindset that if you
made a 59.5 one you at least pass the
class because that would round up and we
could get you the d4 diploma and get you
out the door so you had passed and if
you made a 59.4 one and we couldn’t
round you up then you had failed and
that there was a very clear cut line in
the sand about what passing and failing
was then I became a principal and those
lines started to get a little bit grayer
because I started to realize that the
world is more complex than what I could
put in my grade book then I became a
business person and I opened a company
that does tutoring and consulting in a
lot of other things and then that
totally blew my mind because the
paradigm that I had worked from that
everything was either a success or a
failure had to totally shift because as
a business person I came to understand
that in business every day is trial and
error you try something you see if it
works you adjust that you tweak it if it
doesn’t work you try something different
but there’s no such thing as success or
failure there’s just continued effort to
reach a goal the most important thing we
can ever learn is that there is no
failure there’s only feedback a few
famous examples and they certainly
aren’t unique but if you think about
some famous people Winston Churchill
failed his admissions test to get into
the military academy was defeated in his
run for Parliament suffered from severe
depression all very well known facts but
you know what Churchill said he said
never give in never never in nothing
great or small Churchill if you just
looked at his resume without his name
would not look like a successful person
but when you look at what he achieved I
think you can’t really argue with his
results Babe Ruth who
I had one of the best records in
baseball also had the highest strikeout
record Thomas Edison probably one of my
favorite examples as he was trying to
develop the light bulb tested filament
after filament and found himself with
failed result after failed result and
one of the famous stories about Edison a
reporter once asked him how did it feel
to fail a thousand times before you got
this right and Edison’s answer is quite
revealing because what Edison said was
he didn’t fail a thousand times he
eliminated 999 things that he knew
wouldn’t work when I left the
principal’s office I learned that in
business we may create a hundred ads and
put out some will get hits some won’t I
don’t decide that advertising is a
failure so I shouldn’t advertise anymore
I’ve done I’ve been through three
bookkeeping programs in two years trying
to find the one that works best for our
company and everyone has been better but
I don’t decide we need to quit doing
bookkeeping guys let’s let’s give up on
that I just try to improve it we’ve been
through two curriculums that we’ve had
to do for our math each one producing
better test scores but I don’t decide we
need to give up on writing curriculum
but yet somehow we’ve gotten an idea
that we can look at a child and say
because you didn’t make a hundred on the
test the first time because you didn’t
pass the grade the first time through
you failed I think we need to shift the
paradigm to say you took one more step
towards success now let’s take the next
one when results vary the key trait that
will determine your success or failure
is really two things number one it’s
your sense of efficacy in the face of
varying results do I still feel like I’m
in control of the situation and like I
can affect change a belief that you can
affect change in your circumstances is
one of the most important things in
building success in any career whether
it’s an education or in business the
second one is where is your locus of
control the idea of having an internal
locus
control from the psychology of
personality study says that I believe
that I’m not a passive recipient of
events but that I’m a catalyst that
things don’t just happen to me but that
I can have an effect on what’s happening
around me as a good friend of mine who’s
a pastor always says take one deep
breath as long as you can do that your
story isn’t over and your book is still
being written so I would just offer you
a word of encouragement today when you
face varying results when things may not
have worked out just the way you thought
remember you may be it attempt 999 your
next attempt maybe the one that lights
the whole world [Applause]