Growth Mindset Betrayed: How Schools Preach Effort but Reward Excuses

By Priscilla Rahn, M.Ed, NBCT | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

Policies like minimum F grades, lowered expectations, and racial affinity groups are undermining resilience, accountability, and true learning—while students watch the very lessons of growth mindset go unpracticed. 

Growth mindset, at its core, is about teaching students that effort, persistence, and strategies—not fixed traits like race, background, or “innate intelligence”—lead to improvement and success. I have spent 32 years in education as a teacher and principal, and I believe deeply in this principle. But after decades of working in public schools—especially large city districts with high numbers of minority students—I have grown increasingly concerned: too often, the policies and practices we adopt actually undermine growth mindset rather than nurture it. 

When a school district publicly commits to a growth mindset, it often uses language like, “we believe every child can grow.” Those are good words. But words are cheap. Policies matter. Practices matter.

I have seen firsthand the gap between rhetoric and reality. While schools frequently promote a growth mindset, many current policies—despite good intentions—actually work against it. The following sections highlight concrete ways schools undermine growth mindset, supported by data, cultural comparisons, and examples of what authentic growth mindset looks like in practice.

1. Grading-for-Equity / “Minimum F” Policies: Some districts automatically give a 50% for missing work instead of a zero. While well-intentioned, this sends a subtle message: effort and accountability are optional. Real growth mindset comes from holding students responsible while providing support, reteaching skills, and allowing multiple opportunities to demonstrate mastery. Without that, students may learn that effort doesn’t matter.
2. Safe Spaces / Racial Affinity Groups: Created to allow students from marginalized backgrounds to heal, share, reflect, or feel accepted. These have emotional and social value. Yet sometimes they become spaces of separation rather than connection—reinforcing group identity over individual development. In some cases, they avoid difficult conversations or challenges. A growth mindset needs discomfort, failure, cross‐cultural interaction, not echo chambers.
3. Affirmative Action & Race-based Opportunity Policies: When students receive opportunities primarily because of race or demographic status, it may feel to them or others that achievement is less about effort, and more about identity. The risk is that students internalize messages like “I got this because of my skin color / background,” which can dampen motivation, or lead to imposter syndrome. While systemic inequities are real and must be addressed, policies should ideally reinforce, not replace, merit, effort, and growth.
4. Lowering Expectations for Some Groups: Providing remedial support is essential for helping students catch up—but problems arise when schools track students indefinitely, limit access to advanced coursework, or assume some students can’t handle rigorous work. These practices send the message that growth and high achievement are not expected for everyone. Instead of encouraging persistence and effort, students may internalize a fixed mindset, believing their potential is defined by background, race, or prior performance rather than their work and determination.
5. Overprotecting from Failure or Struggle: This includes practices like giving “participation points” for everything, polishing curriculum so nothing is hard, avoiding tests of rigorous content, or cushioning students from the consequences of missing work. When students never taste failure or difficulty, they don’t learn how to try again, adapt their strategy, or persist in the face of challenge.
6. Praising Intelligence Alongside Effort: Some U.S. schools discourage calling students “smart,” fearing it reinforces fixed ability. In my classrooms, I tell students they are smart—and I pair that praise with recognition of effort and strategy. For example: “You’re really smart, and I can see how much effort you put into figuring this out.” This approach motivates students while reinforcing growth mindset: intelligence is celebrated, but persistence, practice, and strategy are equally valued. Students learn that success is both about ability and the work they put in.
7. Limiting Opportunities for Advanced Learners: Gifted and talented students need real challenges to grow. When schools cap access to advanced coursework or acceleration, they signal that even high-achieving students shouldn’t push beyond a certain level. Growth mindset supports all learners—struggling or advanced—moving as far as their effort and persistence allow. Denying opportunities to excel stifles motivation and potential.

To show that this is more than anecdote, consider the data:

• Global comparisons: Students with a strong growth mindset score higher across reading, math, and science—by roughly 23–32 points—than peers who believe intelligence is fixed (PISA, Education Week).
  
• Mindset matters more than background: In North America, growth vs. fixed mindset explains a larger portion of student performance than socioeconomic status in certain analyses (McKinsey & Company).
  
• Cultural beliefs in effort: Studies comparing Asian-American and White-American students find that Asian students’ academic advantage comes largely from effort and belief in the value of work, not innate ability alone (PNAS).
  
• Barriers for students of color: Black, Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial students report frequent experiences of racism in schools, which correlates with worse mental health, less engagement, and lower ability to adopt growth mindset (CDC).

These findings highlight two truths: mindset matters, and cultural belief in effort drives achievement. But negative stereotypes, lower expectations, and discrimination undermine confidence, motivation, and the conditions in which a growth mindset can thrive.

Because I grew up and went to school in Korea, I’ve seen firsthand how cultural beliefs about effort shape learning. Many people know the stereotype that “Asian students do well,” but few examine why.

Studies of Asian-American students show that—even when socioeconomic status is lower than many White students—they tend to emphasize hard work, discipline, consistent study habits, and the belief that effort drives success (Princeton University). This mirrors my own experience in Korea: struggle was expected, asking for help was normal, extra practice and tutoring were routine, and being called “smart” or “good at school” was understood as recognition of effort and respect for learning—not a fixed trait.

International assessments (PISA and others) reinforce this pattern. Countries like South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Shanghai consistently rank at the top in math, science, and reading, while the U.S. often falls near or below the global average, particularly in math (AJC).

From my perspective, the lesson is clear: it’s not innate ability that drives achievement, but a culture of high expectations, belief in effort, willingness to embrace discomfort, and the understanding that mistakes are a path to learning.

Looking at current trends in U.S. schools, many practices directly contradict the lessons I experienced in Korea and observed in high-achieving cultures:

These contradictions show why simply talking about growth mindset is not enough. Without intentional alignment between philosophy and practice, students receive mixed messages about what matters for success.

Based on my 32 years as a teacher and principal, here are practices I argue must become standard if we want to restore education in America with real growth mindset—not just talk:

1. Clear, consistent expectations for all students: High standards should be non-negotiable, not soft for some groups. Mixed-ability classes can work if they come with supports. Advanced tracks should exist and be accessible, not gated by opaque criteria.

2. Feedback focused on effort, strategy, and process: Teachers should routinely highlight how a student is improving: “I see you used a new way to approach this problem,” “I appreciate that you asked questions and persisted,” etc. Mistakes should be analyzed—what went wrong, what could have been done differently.
3. Teaching to struggle productively: Let students grapple with hard material. Provide scaffolding, but not bypasses. Teach resiliency: when you fail, try again with different strategies. Failure should be part of the curriculum—not something to cover up or avoid.
4. Cross-cultural relationships, not separation: Real diversity in classrooms, mixed groups, interactions across race and background. Teach students to engage respectfully across differences. Build empathy and mutual understanding. This strengthens their ability to navigate a diverse society, not retreat into identity silos.
5. Honest accountability, including for missing work and effort: If a student doesn’t turn in something, let there be clear consequences, but paired with supports. Offer retakes, remediation, chances to recover. But don’t lower expectations simply because work was missing.
6. Encouraging advanced learners appropriately: Gifted and talented students need real challenges. Let acceleration happen when justified; provide advanced coursework, honors or college preparatory tracks. Not as a privilege for only a few, but as an option accessible through effort, demonstrated readiness, and desire.
7. Teacher training and mindset alignment: Growth mindset must be taught and reinforced among teachers and administrators. If school leaders and teachers believe intelligence is fixed, or that some kids are just “hard to reach,” then no amount of growth mindset posters will matter.
8. Measure what matters: Schools should track not just raw grades and test scores but growth metrics: how much a student improved, how they respond to challenges, their help-seeking behavior, and how prepared they are to take risks.

We are seeing alarming data: U.S. student performance falling. A report from 2025 finds high school reading and math scores among 12th graders are at their lowest in decades; only ~35% of students are proficient in reading, and ~22% in math on NAEP. (The Guardian)

In districts with high populations of Black, Hispanic, or low-income students, college‐completion rates are extremely low. In Houston ISD, for example, less than a quarter of Black and Hispanic students in one cohort earned a college degree in six years; overall district rate was about 29%. (Houston Chronicle) These are not just test numbers but futures, hopes, earnings, potential lost.

When students are repeatedly told expectations are lower for them, or that some mistakes can be ignored, or that coming from a disadvantaged background means less is expected, we guarantee that gap widens.

But data also show mindset work makes a difference. The PISA data, McKinsey studies, Asian-American cultural comparisons—all confirm that beliefs about effort, practice, and struggle are powerful levers. Change is possible—but only if schools align practice with principle.

I have a chapter on growth mindset in Restoring Education in America because I believe it’s not an optional philosophy—it’s foundational. If we continue to speak of growth mindset while perpetuating policies that reward fixed identities or reduce accountability, we are doing harm with illusions.

We must demand that schools stop treating growth mindset like a slogan and begin embedding it in every policy, every classroom, every interaction. That means raising standards, holding all students accountable, celebrating effort, teaching resilience, offering real challenges, and ensuring that race or background are not used as shortcuts to assume outcome.

American education can improve—but only if we stop pretending mindset is enough and start making it real.

Priscilla Rahn is a teacher and author of “Restoring Education in America: An Inspirational Teacher Toolbox.”

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.