Ep #389: Why Test Scores Don’t Define You as a School Leader

Hello, Empowered Principals. Welcome to episode 389. 

Welcome to The Empowered Principal® Podcast, a not so typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host certified life coach Angela Kelly.

Hello, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing in this beautiful month of June? Now, I’m going to just dive right in because we’re going to talk about the elephant in the room. Test scores. Test scores are rolling in, folks.

We say that it’s not what we live and breathe for, but if you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, you intellectually know that test scores are just one form of measurement of the tremendous effort that you, your staff, your students, and the school community puts into the development of your students and the children that you are teaching to become adult humans.

Yet, if you think about the pulse of the school year, the rhythm, the seasons of the school year, at the very core of the heartbeat is the test and the test scores. So when this time of year rolls around, naturally your mind cannot help but focus on what the scores are going to be. Are they going to be good or are they going to be bad? And what this score is going to mean for you, for your teachers, for students, for your school community, for the district. It’s nearly impossible not to imagine how the test scores will be interpreted. Your brain just goes there.

And we think about the impact of the interpretation of that score. So if you dig down as to why we are so attached to test scores, it’s what we personally make them mean about us. Good leader, bad leader. Did my job, didn’t do my job. Succeeded, failed.

We think about our teachers. Good teachers, bad teachers, successful, fail. Did their job, didn’t do their job. We think about the students. They tuned in or they didn’t. They put effort into the test or they didn’t. They put effort into learning or they didn’t. They made success, they made progress, or they didn’t.

And then we think about what it means for the school at large. Is my school going to be perceived by the parents, the school community, the district, the school boards, the county, the feds, the state? What is everybody going to think about me, my staff, my students, my school? And what are they going to do in reaction to the score? And it feels very scary because in some cases, there are actions that people decide to take based on test scores that don’t feel good for us, for our staff, for our students, for our district. And we feel very attached to all of this.

It comes down to this test score impacting our identity, our identity as a leader, our identity as a school, the community of your school, the identity of students, the identity of teachers. The district has a stake in the game because it’s about the identity of the district administrators and the name of the district, the brand of the district, how people interpret the quality of your district and of your school, even down to the individual teacher. 

You’ve had parents who observe scores and say, I want this teacher, I don’t want that teacher. My kid needs to be in this classroom, not that classroom. And they’re either basing it on test scores or personality or hearsay in the community.

But test scores are very much a part of our school identity. And you can hear how the brain goes into all-or-none thinking. It’s this or that, good or bad, progress or failure, achievement or the lack of achievement. We’re doing our jobs or we’re not.

And I just want you to see this, the feeling that comes with test scores, the anticipation of it, the worry, the fear, or perhaps you’re hoping, like you feel like things have been going really well this year and you’re anticipating positive results. But many of us are so afraid of the negative results that we think about what’s going to happen if the test scores drop? What are we going to do if? What will people say if? What will my boss do if? What will the district do if? What will the school board do if? And we spend so much energy in wondering. I want you to think about this.

There is a hairline fracture between success and fail when we’re in all or none thinking. There is no land of and in the way that our brain wants to interpret test scores. There’s no wiggle room. So why is that? And there is a reason for this, and it’s a true reason. It’s a factual reason why our brain is anticipating doom and gloom. And that is because the test that we take is a one and done measurement. So it is true that you either received this score or that score for this particular test. It’s just like in sports. You either made more points or less points than the other team for that particular game. So it’s a win or a loss.

And I want you to see something. Let’s zone back out. Let’s use the sport analogy and zone out. As in sports, while you might win or lose one game in the season or one game in the series, a particular game, there is no one game or one score that defines any of the players in that game.

Now, I’m a California girl, so Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors, he is not defined by one game that he and his team lost. He’s not even defined by his one best game. Steph Curry is not the identity of one game, of any of his seasons in basketball. He’s not defined by one score. The person of who he is, the sports genius, the sports magic that he is, who he is as a human being on the planet and his talents and the hours that he must practice and the effort and passion he puts into the game, the one game doesn’t define any of that.

There’s a whole human behind that one win or loss. But yet he looks at it and he feels the loss. He feels the disappointment, he feels the frustration, or he feels the discouragement. It’s not that he’s void of emotion because he’s a great basketball player, but he doesn’t let one game define him. That’s not who he is. He feels the feelings, he studies, he practices, or he rests, whatever his body needs to do to then show up the next day and be the best version of himself, regardless of the win or loss.

And the whole world’s talking about it for anybody who loves basketball or anybody who follows them, they are talking about the loss. And the winners, the other team, they’re talking about the win. So it is on the front page for a day or two or a week or until the next game. And for us, sadly, there’s one test for the whole year. So that test score is on the front page for one full calendar year, from the time you receive it until the time you receive the next score. So it feels very scary. It feels like everything is on the line because it is a year between scores. So we attach all of our identity to this one score.

And, you know, I think about sports people a lot. Like Caitlin Clark, who is a female basketball player from Iowa, my home state, she’s not considered a loser because she wasn’t nominated as best female athlete. I think she was a runner up, but somebody else won the prize, won the title. But does that make her less of a player? 

Does Patrick Mahomes get benched because he doesn’t make the pass, doesn’t complete the pass? Or Mookie Betts from the LA Dodgers, does he get fired because he struck out? And you might be thinking, look, you’re talking the creme de la creme. And it’s easy for those people, easy for those names because they’re top athletes. And yes, yes, they are.

But why are they at the top? They’re at the top because they do not define themselves by the test scores. They don’t define themselves by one test. They don’t let a winning season stop them from practicing or a losing season deter them from playing the game. Their identity as a player is based on their own opinion of themselves, the awareness of who they are, what their talents and strengths are, leveraging those, knowing their weaknesses and their areas of growth, knowing what not to practice on and knowing what to practice on. They’re not trying to be good at every position on the team. They’re just trying to be good at their position on the team.

I think of San Francisco Giants. One of my favorite players, Buster Posey, he was the catcher. He didn’t try to be a pitcher. He didn’t try to be the best pitcher. He didn’t try to be the best first baseman, third baseman, outfielder. He was a pitcher and he could hit. He could score home runs. That’s it. He did those two things. But if he didn’t score a home run, he didn’t get fired. Why? Because of his identity. It’s an alignment with their passion for the game, their desire to learn and grow, to drive themselves constantly to improve and evolve, both their skill set and their mindset.

They leverage the ebbs and flows and the momentum needed to pick themselves up when they miss. They’ve got to feel that failure, be disappointed, and shake it off and move forward. We have to be able to do that in testing. 

So if we get a score this year and it’s like, oh man, we slipped from an A to a B or a B to a C, or however they’re doing it now, it depends on your state. And I coach people all over the United States. So I know it’s done differently, but if your scores are rolling in and they’re not what you want them to be, and I want you to think about what you really want. Like what is considered satisfying?

I know one of my clients, she was looking at her test scores and she’s like, “Oh my God, they’re magnificent.” Then, “Oh, wait, no. Oh, no, this grade level, this. Oh, no, terrible. Oh, look how great. Oh, these individuals.” So it was like, yay, yay, yay, and then awful, awful, awful, all none, all none. And then so worried about what the letter score was going to be. 

And when I talked to her last week and the score had just come in, it was an A. And it was marvelous, magnificent, top of the world. And yes, just like when a team wins the grand championship, the Super Bowl of the world, they get to celebrate. So if you get the A’s, celebrate them. Let that celebration happen, but separate it. Give a degree of separation between the score and your identity as a leader, as a teacher, as a staff member, as a student, as a community.

Because if you take it and run with the A, then the only thing you can ever get is an A. And that is not sustainable in the sense that our identity is dependent on an external score from us versus an internal knowingness. So if you get the A and you’re running with, we are an A school and we are a great school because we’ve got this A from the powers that be, somebody granted you the score of A as an A plus school, you’re going to feel amazing while you’re an A plus school. But then whenever, if and when you become an A minus or a B plus or heaven sakes a C, now everybody, all of a sudden, your same school, the same staff, the same students, the same community, now you’re only average in your identity. You’re only average learners, average teachers, average leading.

How is that possible? How can your identity be outstanding and then be average? Our identity is an internal job. It’s not about what other people think. It’s not about their opinion. It’s not about the score that they give you. Your identity is not the win or the loss. You are not your test scores. Your identity as a leader is not determined by the W or the L. Your capacity to lead is not determined by your test scores. Please see the separation in that.

And I want to mention something about the urge you feel when it comes to the test scores. You know, the anticipation of wanting to know. So the kids are taking the test and you’re like, “I hope they’re doing well.” And remember back in the day when we were kids, we get juice and little snacks. They wanted to make sure your sugar levels were up back in the 70s and 80s, at least when I was a kid, right? We do everything possible to ensure that students have everything they need in order to be successful. And we think that a juice box is going to make the difference. I digress, but I want you to think about the urge.

The urge to know your test scores, it feels a little bit like an addiction. I remember in college waiting for my final exam scores. And I’ve seen it in movies where the kids all run up to the bulletin board and they look for their score or they look to see if they made the team. You know that anticipation? It’s very urgent. And your brain is telling you, I need to know that score. It is urgent that I know. Why is it urgent? Why do I feel so compelled to know?

So think this through. We have the urge to know or we’re like, I don’t want to know, because we’re anticipating or dreading it being a negative score, which means all of a sudden my identity is in the toilet, my school’s identity is in the toilet and I’m going to lose my job and I’m going to go live in a van down by the river. So there is the curiosity, that’s for sure. But there’s something behind that curiosity. And ask yourself, what are you curious about? What is the urge driving you? Why do you need to know the score? Why does it feel so compelling? And what happens once you know?

And the way that I see it for myself and my clients is that we really want to know, number one, we do want to see if our approach to teaching and learning this year was impactful. But that’s not where our brain goes immediately when we see the score. We see the score and the first thing we think of is identity. The W, the L. If we get the W, we get to have some relief, celebrate, acknowledge, and then hold our breath praying to the powers that be that this never slips. We never slip again. Perfection is the solution, we think.

What are we aiming for? We’re aiming for the A. Why? Because of our attachment to our identity and the attachment that we give, the power and the weight that we give to the test score in relationship to our identity. So the reason we want to know that test score is we want to prepare. We want to know that score so we can be prepared in how to handle the outcome of that score, how to navigate other people’s opinions, other people’s actions, other people’s words in relation to the score, their interpretation of the score. We want to know so that we can prepare ourselves. This is how we’re wired.

Anticipation is that feeling of suspense. And if you think about anticipation, it’s so interesting because it can be highly pleasurable. When you’re anticipating like going on vacation. One of my clients is going on a cruise this summer and her anticipation is through the roof. It’s excitement, it feels good. But there is a moment where anticipation almost feels painful. As humans, we crave this anticipation to a point. That’s why we watch suspenseful movies. We like to feel this way. But anticipation comes with the expectation that the suspense we feel is going to resolve itself eventually. It will come to a peak, but there will be some relief.

That’s why a lot of movies, you’re watching it, it’s so suspenseful, but there is a climax and then a release, and then you go back to kind of baseline and you feel safe, comfortable, assured, all over again by the end of the movie. That’s why movies that don’t end the way you thought they were going to end or they intentionally have a lack of closure and they leave you hanging and you’re still feeling the suspense when you’re walking out of the movie theater and you’re like, “What was that about? That was a terrible ending. I can’t believe they did that or what happens next?” That when you’re hanging in anticipation, that unknowingness can create a lot of anxiety. Just notice this. 

So not knowing your test scores is very suspenseful because anything’s possible. They could come in high, they could come in low, they could come in around the same time as last year. They could come in anywhere. You have no idea. So that anticipation, it’s a little bit curiosity, it’s a little bit of excitement, hopefulness, but also fear. You know what I’m talking about? Just notice this.

So if you haven’t received your test scores yet, I want you to tune in to your level of anticipation about them and into the thoughts you’re thinking about. Ask yourself, what am I anticipating? Am I bracing for the worst? Am I expecting a higher score? What am I afraid the scores are going to mean? What am I making them mean? And why do I feel I need to know them right now? What’s the urgency behind my desire to know?

And if you have received your test scores, were your anticipated thoughts in alignment with the reality of the outcome? If there is a difference between what you expected the scores to be and the reality of the scores, whether you anticipated low and they came in high, or you anticipated higher and they came in low, this is going to create some internal dissonance. 

It’s going to either be the dissonance of disappointment and fear or the dissonance of astonishment and excitement. Like, how did we do that? How did the scores get so high? But do you see it’s all, everything is teetering on the test score, the identity of us, staff, students, our future, depending on which way those scores land in relation to your expectations.

So let me leave you with this. Your leadership, your teachers, your staff, your students, your community, your district, education at large for this matter, if we want to go very meta on this, is so much more than any one metric. You are not one test. Your students aren’t one test. Their identity as a student, their ability to learn isn’t reflected by the test score. It’s reflected in their tenacity to show up to school every day. Are they curious? Are they engaged? Are they progressing as a human, mentally, emotionally, socially, physically developing? Intellectual, yes, academic, of course, we want all of that for them.

Your skill set as a leader is not the test. Your ability to hold space for people, to navigate relationships, to communicate, to lead with your heart, to uplift your community, to connect, to collaborate, to communicate, to have compassion, to lovingly work with people, empowering them, holding them up to the highest standard for themselves, allowing people to have voice and choice and to coach themselves up. None of that is captured in one data point. 

You can’t measure a soul. You can’t measure the heart and passion in your leadership drive and who you are in your identity. It’s an internal job. It comes from within. So I want you to breathe. Feel those urges, allow those waves of anticipation, and remind yourself every step of the way, before the scores and after, I am not my test score. Who am I? I decide that. Your empowerment lies in your identity. And I invite you to consider that your identity is an empowered principal.

Have a beautiful week. I will talk with you next week. Take great care of yourselves. Talk to you soon. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader.