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Via Edwize, I just read Diane Ravitch's critique of NYC's pay the student plan.
She says:
From the point of view of schooling, this plan is wrong because it tells kids that they should study only if they get extrinsic rewards. Yet what educators are supposed to do is teach kids to have a love of learning, to encourage them to improve their lives by enlarging their knowledge of the world. If they are going to study only if someone pays them, what happens when the payment ends? What will motivate the kids who are not getting cash payments when their classmates are being paid off for higher scores? The plan destroys any hope of teaching the value of intrinsic motivation, or the rewards of deferred gratification, or the importance of self-discipline for a distant but valued goal.Nowhere in the article does Diane Ravitch make the argument that the plan won't improve achievement, instead she complains that poor inner-city students should suck it up, ignore reality, and learn for the sake of learning.
I don't know if this program will work. All I care about is that if it does work, that it's more cost effective than any other plan to raise achievement by the same amount.
Diane's argument is petty, unrealistic, overly-idealistic, and represents whats wrong with our holier than though education system.
By her arguments since teaching is a truly valuable and critical profession, in fact it is a noble profession and a higher calling, perhaps we should all oppose any attempts to increase teachers pay, since increased pay devalues "the value of intrinsic motivation, or the rewards of deferred gratification, or the importance of self-discipline for a distant but valued goal."
Note: I like a lot of what Diane has to say on other subjects, but on this I don't agree.
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What happens to students when payment ends?
They go out in the world and get jobs.
I don't know what's going on with Ravitch all of a sudden.
She had a horrible op-ed in the NY SUN. It was so upsetting I didn't even write about it here.
The entire column was about how people shouldn't "blame the teacher," because if a student "isn't hungry" he's not going to learn anything, etc., etc.
instead she complains that poor inner-city students should suck it up, ignore reality, and learn for the sake of learning
yup
that was the message of the last column, too
that and "our popular culture sucks"
plus she ignored all the research relevant to her topic that day, as she's apparently done here, too
we do have research on programs that pay kids for achievement (in Africa, I think??)
the result was positive
I remember parents rewarding their kids with money for good grades.
In fact, Ed told Christopher that if he got good grades this quarter he'd buy him some kind of game system thingie (a hard drive, I think)
I forget what average he's supposed to get - a B+ maybe (which with Ms. K & the Spanish teacher would be a major, major achievement)
Kids here get monetary rewards for good grades all the time
The summer after C. was in first grade (or maybe the summer after Kindergarten) he desperately wanted some kind of game system - may have been Nintendo back then.
We struck some kind of bargain with him.
He had to read X number of pages or books - something like that - and if he did it by such and such a date he'd get his system.
He loved that.
We kept close records; we wrote it all down; he could see his progress.
I heard him on the telephone one time telling a friend proudly, "I'm earning my Nintendo."
The friend had no idea what he was talking about.
He read every page & he earned the Nintendo.
AND: Christopher is one of the most intrinsically motivated students I know.
Many of the girls are still ahead of him on intrinsic motivation, I think, but he's one of the most motivated boys at the school.
He's even motivated to do well in chorus, which he signed up for to get out of taking the formal music course.
The chorus director told me C. is "never" bad & said he "uses Christopher as a buffer" (i.e. puts him between acting-up boys.
What a lot of hooey.
Alright, I am off to watch 24, Season 1.
I'm in Diane's camp on this one. I don't care whether this plan would raise achievement or not, the government should not be paying kids for earning good grades (or taking hard classes) in public school. Any benefit is sure to be short-lived. What good is increased achievement if it is not accompanied by an internal drive to continue to apply oneself to the work?
Catherine's experience aside, I'd like to see the evidence that paying kids for grades is associated with increased academic success down the road, when the payments stop.
Paying public high school students is very different from the awarding a scholarship, which lowers tuition in an educational program which a qualifying student might not otherwise be able to afford, and which I support.
I believe that someone in every child's life--a parent, a teacher, a coach--needs to help each of them, one at a time, find the internal motivation to succeed. I don't think a payment program can be substituted for this.
This is Roland Fryer - the Harvard economist.
I doubt he's thinking he's going to substitute money for internal motivation.
Here's a review of the research:
http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/3220731.html
The other thing to remember is that these kids - disadvantaged kids - are dropping out of school in very large numbers.
If they do manage to graduate they are 4 grade levels behind white kids.
The focus with these kids cross the board is on continued economic deprivation due to lack of education.
It's probably good for these kids to make a direct, causal connection between school achievement and income.
(Their parents make the connection, but the kids probably don't, because they're kids.(
Thanks for the citation to the study of merit scholarships in Kenya. Interesting. Still, the program in Kenya is quite different from what Bloomberg is reportedly proposing.
In Kenya, poor students may not be able to afford public school due to the fees charged. In the experimental program, payments to award-winning girls went directly to the schools (to pay the fees) and to the families for purchase of school related items (uniforms, texts, supplies). While there was no monitoring of the families for how this was spent, the awards were made during a big public ceremony and the authors suggest that there was significant cultural pressure on the families to spend this money on education related expenses for the girls.
Also, ALL children were eligible for these merit scholarships, not just needy ones.
The results were positive. The most notable effect in my view was that (in one group of schools) the achievement (and attendance) of ALL populations improved (i.e., non-award winning girls and the boys, as well as the award-winning girls) suggesting that the competition for awards operated as a "rising tide" for all boats.
Important (in my view): These payments were school-related scholarship payments. Not a "paycheck" to do whatever you want to with.
Contrast this with what Bloomberg is proposing (Ravitch's words):
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Department of Education has just approved a plan to pay poor kids to get higher test scores. The city will pay kids if they take tests, pay them if they pass tests and pay them if they get high scores. It will pay them to pass high school graduation exams. It will pay their parents to get library cards and to meet with the children's teachers. It will pay them if their children have a good attendance record.
Ravitch says this is insulting to poor kids and poor families, and states "[t]he pay-for-behavior plan is anti-democratic, anti-civic, anti-intellectual, and anti-social. It is the essence of the nanny-state run amok." I can't help but agree.
If Bloomberg wants to use taxpayer money to help disadvantaged kids by paying their AP test fees, college or votech application fees (or even tuition), tutoring fees, etc., fine. But issuing them a paycheck for behavior that society rightly expects of other kids, no thanks.
I don't know what's going on with Ravitch all of a sudden.
She had a horrible op-ed in the NY SUN. It was so upsetting I didn't even write about it here.
The entire column was about how people shouldn't "blame the teacher," because if a student "isn't hungry" he's not going to learn anything, etc., etc.
I don't see what is upseting about Ravitch's observation. It takes two to tango as they say. There is no shortage of pupils who have no interest in learning, at least among the disadvantaged as I can attest from my own experience. A solution needs to focus on that aspect, as Ravitch rightly points out:
http://www.nysun.com/article/56557
We will continue to misdiagnose our educational needs until we focus on the role of students and their families. If they don't give a hoot about education, if the students are unwilling to pay attention in class and do their homework after school, if they arrive in school with a closed and empty mind, don't blame their teachers.
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