A central theme of education reform in the NCLB era has been incentives, and particularly with No Child Left Behind the incentives have been negative - improve or else suffer the consequences. Most educators know, if not through instinct then through experience, that negative incentives do not improve learning in anything but the shortest of terms. Given this it should not be surprising that the the vast majority of educators see this as a major shortcoming in the federal law.The other side of the incentive coin is that of positive incentives - rewards. And of course there are intrinsic rewards as well as extrinsic. As teachers we know that the gold standard in intrinsic reward is that learning to the highest levels possible is in and of itself a reward. We also quickly learn that our charges - the students we attempt to teach- do not always see it that way. Thus any good teacher has a quiver full of various ways to reward his or her students.How about this idea for incentives: Let’s pay students cold cash rewards for increased achievement. Good idea - I don’t think so. And yet it is happening in New York City, Baltimore City, and Fulton County Public schools. If you are stunned by this revelation give this article a read: Next question: Can Students Be Paid to ExcelThe New York experiment was proposed by Roland G. Fryer, a Harvard economist and was folded into a larger anti-poverty initiative the centerpiece of which is cash incentives. You can read more detail of the plan in this article School Plan to Pay Cash for MarksBob Sheaffer, Public Education director for FairTest (National Center for fair and Open Testing) says that although this is not a new idea, it is still not a good one. He was quoted recently in an article from Diverse Online as saying,”Research shows that [incentive programs] have the same effect on learning as steroids has on athletic performance. There is a short-term improvement while risking long-term damage. test scores may increase in the interim, but over the long haul kids lose motivation. It’s a bad idea.”Of course there are opposing views, I happen to agree with Mr. Shaeffer. What do you think? Do you need economists to tell you which way the wind blows?
You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Tell Which Way the Wind Blows
March 14, 2008 · 2 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
2 responses so far ↓
bill // March 31, 2008 at 8:57 am
Until kids see value in learning, most won’t bother. We don’t need highly paid technocrats running a prison-like school system even if they could pass the tests. Let’s go back to the days before the so called excellence in education days and allow families to raise their kids instead of working day and night to pay taxes.
sara valentino, LCSW // April 4, 2008 at 11:17 am
As a social worker who has worked with children in inner city areas, I have extremely mixed feelings about NCLB. On one hand I feel that there should be some accountability, however I am not sure that testing is the way to go. Are we looking at classroom sizes, are we looking at the environments that some of these children are growing up in, are we taking into consideration that each child may have a differing learning style? Speaking personally, I excelled in school but did not do well on standardized tests. I am glad that this dialogue has begun but I think we need to look at the big picture.
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