Why "Pretty Good" isn't Good Enough

I've sat in on a lot of meetings, wheather it's an IEP, Staff Development, Parent Teacher Conferences, Teachers meeting, or even Administrative meetings, I hear a lot of the same things.  Our students are doing pretty good.  And I've always thought everyone must be happy with the way our students are doing.  I alway was.  Then I read something that made me think we could be doing better.  Here it is.  It was written by Charles Osgood.

There once was a pretty good student
Who sat in a pretty good class,
And was taught by a pretty good teacher
Who always let pretty good pass.
He wasn't terrific at reading,
He wasn't a whiz bang at math,
But for him education was leading,
Straight down a pretty good path.
He didn't find school too exciting,
But he wanted to do pretty well,
And he did have some trouble with writing,
And nobody taught him to spell.
When doing arithmetic problems,
Pretty good was regarded as fine,
Five plus five needn't always add up to be ten,
A pretty good answer was nine.
The pretty good school that he went to,
Was there in a pretty good town,
And nobody there seemed to notice,
He couldn't tell a verb from a noun.
The pretty good student in fact was,
Part of a pretty good mob,
And the first time he knew what he lacked was,
When he looked for a pretty good job.
It was then, when he sought a position,
He discovered that life could be tough,
And he soon had a sneaking suspicion,
Pretty good might not be good enough.
The pretty good town in our story,
Was part of a pretty good state,
Which had pretty good aspirations,
and prayed for a pretty good fate.
There once was a pretty good nation,
Pretty proud of the greatest it had,
Which learned much too late,
If you want to be great,
Pretty good is, in fact pretty bad.