Of Jerry Maguire and perverse incentives
This blog has seen various commentary on why Michelle Rhee’s plan, “Capital Gains,” to pay students for good behavior and good grades was a bad idea (try here to see the ongoing conversation). Liam, in particular, was vehemently opposed to it in its New York City and Washington DC manifestations. Well it didn’t work (or had “mixed results,” ahem-hem) in NY and it doesn’t appear to have worked in DC, either. When will Fryer, the plan’s mastermind, give it a rest?
Today’s Washington Post reports that behavior has improved but grades have not. The program has now completed a two week test run (where it appears no money was rewarded, only the points system was implmented to demonstrate how the system would work) and started officially (in all its glitzy, perverse incentivizing glory) yesterday. I enjoyed, in particular, this tidbit:
Betts and his staff did a two-week trial run this month to give teachers practice with the scoring system and to give students an idea of what would be expected to earn points. He said that the sixth- and seventh-graders were “right into it” and that attendance and punctuality ticked up. Grades did not.
Eighth-graders, he said, are “crafty folk” and are likely to wait until the program ramps up before they make many changes. “They’re like ‘Jerry Maguire’: ‘Show me the money,’ ” he said.
And there, my friends, is the whole problem. Yes, this plan will tap into the little Jerry Maguires in all of us, but it will teach these kids zilch. And when the $2.7 million that has miraculously survived the recent advent of Great Depression Round II runs out, we’ll be back at square one.
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September 30th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Remind me again about why this is different from paying teachers for test scores? Or is the message that bribes are bad for you when you’re learning, but once you’re an adult they’re fine...
October 1st, 2008 at 2:41 am
What a terrible idea. Even if it worked at the start, it would only work for a short time, and then become common-place, thereby making the incentive (1) expected and then resentment would set in when the incentive was held aloft as an incentive, as well as (2) not powerful enough to compel a person to do the things that take effort in life.
Sorry to say, but learning does take effort. And time. And practice. Learning should not be easy. It should be a challenge; that is the beauty of learning. If you cheat students out of this beauty of learning, they will not have had a chance to develop it and then, and sadly forever, the desire to learn will not exist.
@Catherine Cullen, I would argue that paying teachers for test scores is another attempt to throw money at things that cannot be improved with money. It is a business model for improvement. I think you would find many teachers who would not want the money-for-higher-test-scores system.
I know I would not, especially because the structure to create such a system would deviate so far from the act of learning that it could scarcely be called learning at that point.
I have read many blogs posting on this topic. Perhaps it is because grade are coming out soon. I posted on this topic as well and invite you to read http://www.storiesfromschool.org/2008/09/grades-a-necess.html#more.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:52 am
If teachers aren’t paid for test scores then what are teachers paid for?
Showing up? Being exemplars of compassion and concern? Displaying anger that they’re not paid more?
Oh and Travis? I think plenty of teachers, once they got over their initial unhappiness at having to prove professional competence, would be plenty happy to make more money by making sure kids got higher test scores. Heck, a teacher who was particularly good at getting higher test scores out of kids might make a nice piece of changing teaching other teachers to do the same thing.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:03 am
Teachers get paid to teach. And frankly, student learning is not the only (nor always the most efficient) way to raise test scores.
Dan Koretz does the most accessible job I’ve seen of articulating the negative side effects of making test scores the sole important outcome for schools. I can only imagine those symptoms would get worse if teacher pay was tied to scores alone.