There have been studies on parental expectations too: if you expect your child to graduate, he or she will.  This reminds me of that movie about the math teacher in LA, can't remember the name of it, but his students completed higher math course and passed tests, but the administration didn't believe the results.  I think standards, from many angles, are vastly important.
va

Virginia Tardaewether 
Chemeketa Community College 
4000 Lancaster Drive NE 
Salem, OR  97305 
503-399-6147 


When new life appears, just as a budding plant rises from the ground, the heart aspires to new growth and is filled with hope. Use life to renew oneself.
Voices of the Heart



-----Original Message-----
From: focusonbasics-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:focusonbasics-bounces at nifl.gov]On Behalf Of
robinschwarz1 at aol.com
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 6:13 PM
To: focusonbasics at nifl.gov
Subject: Re: [FocusOnBasics] a lament


Well why not look at a study from Kentucky about the effect of teacher 
expectations on high school students.  No lying involved.   In this 
study, two teachers were prepared in exactly the same way to do a new 
program ( I believe it was in science).  The idea of the study was to 
see if the program helped the students, but to the surprise of the 
researchers the two classes achieved quite different results.  The only 
factor that could be identified that influenced the results was teacher 
expectation--the students of the teacher who was sure her students 
could do this new, challenging work did very well, while the students 
of the other teacher, who was sure the students would not get it, did 
relatively poorly.  This is not news.  This is what is known as a self- 
fulfilling prophecy.

Studies were done in the 70's on the effect of labeling students on 
teachers' expectations of the students.  Needless to say, the 
expectations shifted drastically down when students were identified as 
special needs in any way.

Recent ( January) visits to several K-12 schools confirmed that this 
attitude is alive and well among a lot of teachers and sped teachers.   
Robin Schwarz

-----Original Message-----
From: AWilder106 at aol.com
To: focusonbasics at nifl.gov
Sent: Fri, 24 Feb 2006 17:31:25 EST
Subject: Re: [FocusOnBasics] a lament

Hi Iris,

I can't remember the name of the first researcher who did  a study on 
low/high teacher expectations and their self-fulling prophecy, but I do 
remember the study.  The resaercher got his data by lying to the 
teacher about the ability of her students.  (Maybe more than one 
teacher, I can't remember now.)

When I read that I kind of stopped cold.  Toally unethical, of course.

It was the idea of lying to the teacher that I found so shocking.  What 
can I say;  I was very young.

Andrea.

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