Marzano and effort

As I was driving home from school the other day I was talking to a fellow teacher complaining that our kids are being assessed to death and they really don't care how they do on the assessments. (I had just given the math benchmark 3 after 2 weeks of CRTs, Fountas and Pinnell, and then SRIs) I was assessed to death! Anyway, my question for her was, "How do we make them care about the tests they are taking?" And then I read chapter 4 in Marzano about effort and the direct relationship towards effort and achievement. This chapter talks about the importance of teaching about the relationship between effort and achievement and the more effort you put towards anything, the greater achievement you will have. Chapter 4 came complete with an Effort/Achievement Rubric and the outline of how to track this information. I called my friend excitedly and told her I had solved the problem of how to make our kids care. I am going to use the Effort/Achievement Rubric next year and have the data for parents at parent teacher conferences. I am also going to talk to my principal and see if maybe we could change principal visit notes to Effort Certificates. Same concept, but recognizing effort as well as the other positives. Can't wait to share my ideas with my team at team meeting!