Asa Hilliard

Asa Hilliard, professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, talks about the importance of holding high expectations for at-risk students and helping them learn skills in critical and conceptual thinking. Excerpted from the video series Restructuring to Promote Learning in America's Schools, videoconference #9, Reconnecting Students at Risk to the Learning Process (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1990).

"On the academic side, it is extremely important, especially when thinking of children who are placed at risk that would not be limited in expectations for them to the basic skills, it really should be thought of in terms of outcomes that would normally be associated with excellent criteria, and by that I mean the ability of the students to think in conceptual terms and in critical terms about what they're doing and to be able to express those thoughts regardless of the academic content area at levels that we think of as excellent. So, this is far beyond standardized test scores and measures, those are interesting and for some people important, but they really establish standards that are at a level far too low for the children because they have abilities that are much higher than that."

This Critical Issue was researched and written by Donna M. Ogle, professor of reading and language at National-Louis University in Evanston, Illinois.

Date posted: 1997