What Do You Expect?

A classic study in 1968 conducted by Rosenthal and Jacobson discovered a powerful link between teacher expectations and student achievement.  Teachers in a school were accustomed to reviewing the student IQ scores of their incoming students.  Low and behold those students with the highest IQ scores made the A’s and those whose scores were not so stellar made lower grades.  The study, however, gave teachers erroneous random scores rather than the actual scores.  There was no connection between the actual IQ score and the random score the teachers saw.  Low and behold those students with the highest random number made the A’s and those students whose random number was not so stellar made the lower grades.  Kids with actual low IQ scores performed better than kids with actual high IQ scores if their random number was higher.  Powerful data, and the study has been replicated and verified multiple times.  An entire set of instructional strategies emerged from these data to help teachers expect the best from all their students and communicate such to even the lowest-performing students. 

Do the achievement scores of high IQ kids still matter?  Of course, they do.  But high IQ students tend to do very well.  Black students not so much.  Poor students not so much.  If I was still in education I would be very tempted to start a “Black Kids’ Scores Matter” movement.

And that is the point of Black Lives Matter.  It doesn’t mean white lives or brown lives or rich lives do not matter.  It means we have it within ourselves to change our expectations and thereby change the outcomes.  It is far too easy to simply say Blacks would not be incarcerated to such a level if they did not break the law.  That would be akin to saying kids with low IQ’s are going to do poorly in school because they have low IQ’s.  We know that is not true regarding student performance, why shouldn’t it be true regarding Blacks who have contact with the justice system?  If I roll up on a group of black teenagers, what do I expect?  Or a group of white teenagers?  If I see a white man driving an old truck in an affluent neighborhood do I look at him differently than I do when I see a Black man driving the same truck?  We get what we expect.

When in college I had long hair and a beard and drove a 1963 Chevy Bellaire with a peace symbol on the back window.  I was often stopped and searched for drugs.  None were ever found for a very good reason.  I had none.

I used to drive a Mustang convertible.  I loved that car, but I sure got stopped a lot and warned about speeding.  I have always practiced setting my cruise control 3 or 4 mph about the posted highway limit and that got me stopped, but I rarely got a ticket.  I traded that car in on a pick-up truck and follow the same practice with my cruise control.  I have never been stopped.

I have never seen a Cadillac Esplanade on the side of the road as law enforcement searches the vehicle with Anglo passengers standing to the side.  On the other hand, I can hardly drive anywhere in south Texas and not see all kinds of cars, trucks, and suvs being searched while Latinos wait on the side. 

If a police officer wants to give me a traffic ticket he or she would not have to follow me very long to find a reason to do so.  We get what we expect.

And each time a Black person is shot and killed by law enforcement the expectations get confirmed by all.  Those who expect such outcomes always say the cops had probable cause.  Those of us who are sensitive to expectations may say one more case where Black lives did not matter.  It is time for us to always expect the best of people regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, etc.  For too long we have judged books by their covers and devalued the content of the book.  Law enforcement is sworn to serve and protect and that includes everyone.  Yes, Black Lives Matter.  If we know that, believe that, act on that we will get what we expect.