How about some good old fashioned effort?
February 2025
Nationwide, educators expend a great deal of energy preparing students for state tests. Clever teams engage in smart work on this topic—they dig through last year’s outcomes, searching for programmatic weaknesses they can shore up, they analyze test blueprints to ensure that the heavy-hitting standards are likewise heavy in their curricula, and they embed items in classrooms that mirror those kids will encounter on the state test.
In contrast, some teachers and some entire schools blow off their state tests. They tell their kids that these assessments don’t matter, granting students permission to coast through the testing sessions without putting forth effort.
While it’s a stretch to suggest that state tests are making our world a better place, I struggle with this second approach. As educators, isn’t it our broad mission to mold the type of humans we’d like to see running things when we’re old and need the younger folks to care for us and our world? Don’t we want to create learning environments that encourage young people to give their best effort all the time, even when they don’t personally benefit from the outcome?
In my days as a principal at Sheridan Junior High School, our kids put up some pretty impressive state test scores. This is in no small part due to clever and strategic teacher-driven work like that described above, along with a healthy dose of truly wonderful instruction. In addition, there was a third ingredient in our soup that pushed our program to the top of the heap: Our kids tried. Hard.
This effort was not an accident. The team at SJHS put extensive time and energy into creating a culture of effort, and into extending that culture of effort to the state test. And boy did it work. These days, as I coach principals, teams, and schools who are looking to improve test scores and accountability ratings, we’re discussing a slate of strategies that include student effort. Here are a few simple tactics that schools can use to encourage some state-test effort among students:
Get on message. Leaving room for every teacher to craft their own individual opinionated message about state tests is a recipe for wide variability. Instead, everyone should really be speaking the same language. In any healthy organization, the team calibrates on what matters and how to communicate about important goals and targets. Schools should be no different. If our mantra is “we give our best effort at all times,” then every teacher should be on message, even if they aren’t crazy about the state test.
Set individual goals. I had an 8th grade ELA teacher who met with every one of her students to review their performance and set growth goals for the new year. It seems so obvious – bring students into the goal setting process. In fact, now that I’m really thinking about it, it seems downright crazy to set goals for people and not tell them about it. We all know that goal setting impacts effort and motivation, so sit down with students and establish some achievable targets. Oh, and that 8th grade ELA teacher … her students consistently surpassed the 90% proficiency mark, including the kids in her co-taught sections.
Leverage relationships. Way back when I was teaching high school writing, I was never above the base act of begging. Sure, I worked my tail off to prepare students with all the skills to succeed on that junior level assessment. And I added one additional and powerful failsafe on the morning of the test: I pleaded with my students. “You might not have the motivation to give this test your best effort on your own behalf, and that’s fine. So I’m asking you to try for me. This test is a reflection of my work as your teacher, and I want to see the outcomes of your best effort. If you’re not going to try for yourself, please do it for Mr. Craft.”
Incentivize effort. Back at SJHS, we put a lot of resources into a system to incentivize effort. It worked like this: If a test proctor saw a student putting forth genuine effort, that student received a ticket at the end of the session. They then wrote their name on the ticket, headed to the office, and chose between a slate of drawings. Prizes ranged from tons of small daily items (e.g. pencils, jerky) to a handful of large prizes at the end of the testing cycle (we’re talking bikes, skateboards, tablets).
Get peppy. Why should athletics have a corner on the pep rally market? Why limit our competition with that rival district to the basketball court? When it comes to the state test, let’s get the student council rolling, the band fired up, and organize a good old fashioned pep rally. There’s nothing wrong with leveraging a spirit of competition as we get ready for the spring testing season.
Don’t get me wrong. Strategic focus on curriculum, instruction, and data matters a lot. We owe it to our students to deliver an educational package that sets the stage for success. We also owe it to them to foster a culture of effort, to send the message that in our school, we give our best effort at all times. In the end, it’s not just about improving test scores; it’s also about shaping humans who care and who try hard, even when the task before them isn’t super appealing. This is the type of school culture I want to help create, and that I want my kids and grandkids to experience. And students who learn to try hard, they’re the ones I want running things when I’m old, need some support, and hope the younger generation is in the habit of going the extra mile.
