A few weeks back, my eight-year-old failed our local pool’s swimming test. It’s the one kids need to pass to use the diving board. He rushed back in tears, complaining about the unfairness of it all, grabbing mom for a hug, and then proceeding to pout. The teenage lifeguard who’d failed him hesitantly meandered over.

Watching the lifeguard approach, I had two thoughts. The first was, “Good for you.” The second was that it can’t be any fun to tell a little kid, “Nope, you can’t dive,” knowing that his parents might proceed to jump down your throat.

The high schooler sort of sidled over. He said that, given the depth of the deep end, they want kids to be able to tread water comfortably for 60 seconds. He recommended a little practice with that would probably suffice. I thanked him.

I’ve been thinking about that little tableau more than I’d expected over the last few weeks. After all, it would’ve been a whole lot easier for the lifeguard to say, “Good enough,” and call it a day. It keeps the kids happy. It eliminates the chance that irate parents will hassle him or complain to management. It’s the path of least resistance for all concerned.

That path is taken all too often by schools plagued by chronic absenteeism, misbehavior, and grade inflation. Truth is, ed schools, teacher trainings, and consultants obsessed with trauma have immersed educators in a culture of therapy, one where too many steadfastly avoid bluntly having to say, “That’s not good enough. Do better.”

Take the reaction to the White House’s recent announcement that President Trump was reinstating the Presidential Fitness Test (which was discontinued in 2013 as part of a shift away from “athletic performance” in favor of a more holistic “barometer” of student health). Those old enough will recall that the test involves sit-ups, pull-ups, a little running, and other basic exercises. Students who hit certain benchmarks get a certificate. Not a big deal, to say the least. Well, to get a sense of the trauma-soaked national imagination of 2025, check out the New York Times story on Trump’s decision, “For Some, Return of Presidential Fitness Test Revives Painful Memories”:

While some still proudly remember . . . receiving a presidential certificate, many others recoil at the mere mention of the test. For them, it was an early introduction to public humiliation. “You would see it,” Ms. Burnett said. Her classmates “would feel body shamed if they didn’t perform as well.”

My favorite quote in the Times story is the 60-year-old woman who laments, “It was survive or fail. It was Darwinist” (emphasis mine). Now, I don’t think Charles Darwin would think kids having to do pull-ups really captures the adapt-or-die essence of On the Origin of Species. But this kind of overwrought anxiety has become pervasive, undermining our ability to set clear expectations for kids or confidently stand by them.

I can’t help but think that this is a story about our discomfort with expectations. This matters. If it feels tough and unpleasant to maintain high standards, they’re less likely to be maintained. When high standards are dismissed as oppressive or cruel, people start seeing them as the enemy.

Now, there’s a built-in consequence that is immediate and quite public if one lazily judges a  weak performance on a swim test “good enough.” If a kid jumps off the diving board, can’t make it to the side, and has to be pulled out of the water, well . . . it’s dangerous. There’s potential liability. All in all, not a great look. The lifeguard who okayed the kid’s swim test may well be called to account. This is the kind of backdrop that can help stiffen spines. But in a school setting, the consequences of lenient grading aren’t as immediately evident.

Truth is, it’s easy for educators to give an inflated grade, ignore a missed deadline, excuse an absence, or look the other way when a kid misbehaves. If anything, it feels like laxity is rewarded. So what? The kid is happy, the parents are happy, the bosses are happy to avoid a hassle, and no one’s the wiser. This is the essence of Ted Sizer’s immortal “Horace’s compromise”—that the teacher pretends to teach and the students pretend to learn. This wink-wink understanding has fueled the popularity of practices like “equitable grading” and “restorative justice,” which lend lowered expectations the veneer of high-minded respectability.

That’s what so insidious about these “equitable” practices. By insisting we look askance at high standards, they erode the confidence that undergirds meaningful expectations. You want to teach an educator to just wave everyone along? Tell them that demanding good behavior or on-time assignments is bigoted or inequitable. Tell them the district expects every student to get a passing grade. Or tell them that sending misbehaving students to the office will be seen as evidence they are failing to control their classroom. No matter what the intent is, the message is clear: Shut up and go with the flow.

If we want high expectations, we must honor and encourage those who maintain them. That means celebrating educators who enforce deadlines, give grades students deserve, and discipline misconduct. This requires a top-to-bottom culture of accountability: supervisors who are willing to walk the walk; policies that entail consequences for educators who take the easy path; and parents who recognize that high standards are what shows a school cares about their kids.

It feels like we’re a very long way from that. But I’ll know we’re moving in the right direction when I see high-priced teacher trainers evince a commitment to excellence that approximates that of our 17-year-old, $12-an-hour lifeguard.

Frederick Hess is an executive editor of Education Next and the author of the blog “Old School with Rick Hess.”