A Plan to Pay Cash for Top Scores on Some Tests Gains Ground

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: A Plan to Pay for Top Scores on Some Tests Gains Ground
By JULIE BOSMAN
Published: June 9, 2007

Roland G. Fryer, a 30-year-old Harvard economist known for his study of racial inequality in schools, is back in New York to again promote a big idea: Pay students cash for high scores on standardized tests and their performance might improve. And he has captured the attention of Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

Across the country, educators have been experimenting with cash incentives. A program in Chelsea, Mass., gave children $25 for perfect attendance. Some Dallas schools pay children $2 for each book they read.

But the idea is controversial. Many educators maintain, among other objections, that children have to learn for the love of it, not for cash.

Until now, Professor Fryer’s idea of cash for performance has had no serious takers. Three years ago, he tried to implement a pilot program in New York City charter schools that would have given students cash in exchange for good test scores....

But Mr. Bloomberg has recently shown interest in using payments, raised from the private sector, as a way to change behavior and reduce poverty.

In September, he proposed giving cash to poor adults to encourage them to do everything from keeping their children in school to seeking preventive medical care. And so, he said yesterday at a news conference, he was receptive to Professor Fryer’s idea. “If we aren’t looking at everything,” he said, “shame on us.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/nyregion/09schools.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. If this really worked, don't they know we would have done it a LONG time ago?

Good grief. There is LOTS of research available that shows what kinds of incentives encourage long term learning and what kind do not work.

The 'best' expert on this is Alfie Kohn:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/index.html

[LWolf]

2. Thus goes the nation.

If people don't see something they value in it for them, they're not doing it. What is valued? Cash, stuff, status. What is not valued? Learning, thinking, respect, empathy, community, responsibility.

The best, and fastest, way to corruption is to bribe.

I need a new profession. The direction mine is taking sickens me.

[JackDragna]

3. Bloody utter madness.

This just shows me places like Harvard are more collections of pseudo-intellectuals with good credentials rather than anyone who knows a damn about anything. We keep saying we want to raise the bar for students in this country, yet we keep doing the things that ruin higher-order thinking and competence. Want to teach students academic disciplines require nothing more than memorizing facts? Make them take standardized tests until their fingers are numb. Want to ruin a student's intrinsic motivation to learn and make schools more cutthroat and vicious than ever? Pay them for doing well.

I'm with Wolf here. I'm a teacher and I'm just about ready to take up being a garbage collector. Pays better, I get more respect and I don't have highfalutin idiots messing with my job.

[Bread and Circus]

4. learn for the love of it....hmmmm

I find this point interesting "children have to learn for the love of it" as it was often a message I heard as a child but it never really sunk in at the time. Only now, in my thirties, after my schooling is all done do I take it upon myself to "learn for the love of it". Not that I was a bad student actually, my college GPA was 3.92 and my MCAT scores were 97th percentile. However, it was always about jumping through a long series of hoops, not learning for learning's sake. The only fun I had were non-academic subjects like art and drafting. These days though, I'm studying math and electronics just for fun because I have the luxury of doing so, and such puzzles truly delight me at this point.

I just wonder if it is unrealistic for adults to expect children to "learn just for fun" in the way they are teaching in school. Kids do learn for fun, but they learn things that are fun for them, things that matter to them. I'd wager many students don't consider grammar, rote math, and other hardcore vitally important subjects really fun.

If giving the kids some cash for top scores helps them learn more and improve their minds, then I'd be interested in seeing how that plays out. I would imagine that the brightest will eventually learn for learning's sake, because I just don't think that can be programmed in or out of the human mind.

[johnaries]

5. Immediate Gratification vs Deferred Gratification.

That's one of the major problems with our society now. People don't save because they prefer immediate gratification rather than the eventually more bountiful rewards of deferred gratification. Can't afford a luxury home? Don't want to save up for it? Get it now by taking this variable rate ballooning home loan in which you will pay more for the interest than you will for the home!
Can't afford furniture for your new home? Put it own your Credit Card that you will be paying on until you die and then pass the debt onto your children!

[KoKo]

6. Profit Motive Invades Everything! And NYT's gives it an "airing."

:puke: