The Manassas goal

“You have the opportunity to do something people said you couldn’t do.”

That is the challenge Manassas High School principal James Griffin offers seniors at the North Memphis school, located in a distressed neighborhood where children are not expected to succeed.

It is the type of challenge that is an important weapon in the push to improve student test scores. Students who are convinced to believe in themselves are more likely to do well in school and attend a postsecondary institution of learning.

Griffin has challenged all 124 Manassas seniors to have 10 college acceptance letters by next spring, with the goal being that all 124 will attend a college or junior college after they graduate. That would be a historic accomplishment for the school and for the Memphis City Schools system.

Sometimes, in the midst of all the urgency about education reform, getting better teachers in classrooms and having students make significant progress in gaining proficiency in core subjects, the self-esteem aspect gets lost.

As long as principals and teachers like Griffin are challenging students to believe in themselves, however, those goals can be reached.

In the case of the Manassas seniors, that challenge can be doubly effective because the students are working as a team, urging one another to accomplish a task that has never been accomplished before.

In the world of education reform, good teachers are important. Caring and effective principals are important. But educators like Griffin know that another weapon promoting students’ success is challenging them to believe they can exceed expectations, and then actually do it.