The Number For Excellence

Researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.  According to Malcolm Gladwell the author of “Outliners,” the emerging picture is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert in anything. In study after study this number comes up again and again.

The experts claim there are no naturals that float effortlessly to the top. Once a person achieves a certain ability the one thing that truly distinguishes them is how hard they work.  The interesting thing about ten thousand hours is that it’s an enormous amount of time and it’s impossible to reach that number all by yourself.   You have to have encouragement and support and in most cases an extraordinary opportunity to give you a chance to put in those hours. 

KIPP schools are giving their students this extraordinary kind of support and opportunity.  In  KIPP schools students spend 50 to 60 percent more time learning than in traditional public schools.  Everyday students have ninety minutes of English and Math and one hour of science.  Every student in the school plays in the orchestra.  Nationally more than 90 percent of their middle school students go to college preparatory high schools and later to college. 

It sounds like these numbers could be exaggerated especially when you factor into this equation that almost all their students are low-income and African American or Latino.  But on closer examination you see what’s going on here.  Every student signs a contract to put learning first.  Most students begin their school day by getting up at 5:30.  In return for this effort students are rewarded with work that is meaningful.  The three qualities that make work satisfying autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward are part of the KIPP program. 

The KIPP philosophy closes the achievement gap.  It has been an accepted belief for too long by too many that disadvantaged children are not as smart as their more privileged counterparts.   And that educators are not doing a good enough job of teaching them.  When what really is responsible is having gaps in their learning. 

The real problem for students who aren’t achieving is there isn’t enough time for school.  Whatever gains are made during the school year are lost during the summer.  This cycle continues year after year.   Expanding the amount of time spend in school closes this gap.

What KIPP is doing is consistent with the number for excellence; it’s the practice and the time devoted to it that makes a difference.

Instead of talking about reducing class size, rewriting curricula, buying every student a new laptop and increasing funding  schools need to look at the amount of time students spend learning.  Summer vacation is considered a permanent  feature of school life.  The causes of Asian math superiority are obvious.  Students in those schools don’t have summer vacations. In the US the school year is on average 180 days, in South Korea it’s 220 days and in Japan 243 days.  Longer days and a shorter summer will help American students will catch up to our most successful competitors