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Incentives Matter.
We need to Incentivize the behaviors we want to see more of.
Behavioral Science has shown us that We Improve What We Measure. Positive Reinforcement works best by measuring successes and rewarding them. But even just charting the results with no other reward improves the outcome for what's measured.
So we better measure the right things.
What outcomes do we want to incent?
Often, we're talking about this at the student level. But what if we turned it around, and instead of using e.g. Precision Teaching just on students, we did it to the teachers? The principal? The School Board?
Seriously, if we want transparency from the school board, can we chart it? What if we kept a celeration chart on the web showing the District' Response Time to a parent's request for data? Just KNOWING the chart is publicly available should have an effect.
Or how about keeping a chart showing number of conversations board members have per week with non ed-speak people? ie.e parents or students?
Or a chart showing the number of conversations had without a lawyer present in the room?
Or a chart showing how many parent suggested curricula/materials/ideas were adopted?
Any other suggestions for what behaviors we want to incentivize? Any suggestions for the metrics to do it?
How about in the classroom, by the teacher? How about at the principal level?
Any chance we could get a school board to adopt putting the celeration chart for their principals/teachers/etc on their web site? That would really make a difference.
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9 comments:
Nice idea here.
From the viewpoint of our affluent, suburban district, I don't think it would work, due to the culture of denial among parents which Catherine Johnson cites. I know that parents who pay attention to the school committee, and who bother to write letters to the editor, etc., get pegged as "pushy parents" very quickly. I venture to say that the vast majority of parents (mothers especially) feel that the way to keep your "good school district" good is to 1) support any bond measure or tax increase, and 2) not criticize anything at school. I don't agree with that culture, but we are in the minority.
Note the hostility from many public school parents towards charter schools. The excuse frequently given is that it "drains money from the public schools." I don't believe that--charter schools are public after all, and they are generally reimbursed at a lower rate than public schools. I think the reason for the hostility is the discomfort it causes a smug suburbanite for their neighbors to choose other options, especially when those schools are "bare bones" alternatives.
Allison read my mind.
I'm in the middle of a FOIL process, my first request having been denied by the district.
I may get into details later; this involves the little girl whose situation is described on the new Irvington Parents Unite web site.
The central issue in this little girl's case is that the district has tested her & determined that she has weak working memory.
Working memory - for passersby - means the memory I'm using right now to write this comment & you are using to read it. To write this comment, I have to remember the little girl, remember the issue, remember the mom's web site, remember Allison's post, AND remember why I set out to write this comment in the first place.
I also have to remember vocabulary & grammar, etc.
Poor working memory means it's hard to hold onto all the things you need to hold onto in order to understand what you read or hear. That's why this child needs a tape recording of the class, & that's why giving kids with poor working memory or ADHD or whatever a tape recording of the class is standard practice everywhere in the country. With a tape recording, you can listen to what the teacher said several times.
The district has denied this child a tape recording of the class on various grounds, one of them being teacher discomfort with the idea.
Here is the grandfather's take on the district's decision:
This brings me to what appears to be at the heart of the problem. Your letter states that one factor leading to the administration’s unwillingness to allow Xxxxx to use a digital recorder is “teacher discomfort with the idea.” I have no idea what the basis for such discomfort might be, but I know as a lawyer that Xxxxx has a legal right to make a verbatim record of every word spoken in class and to publish it if she so chooses. Therefore, the only inference I can draw is that the “discomfort” arises from the reliability of the recording as opposed to the fact of the recording. Thus the only right you are protecting the teacher’s “right of deniability.” To ignore the value of a digital recording device to a learning disabled student in order to protect teachers against their own words is perverse logic.
If teachers' & administrators' annual raises were based in results - in student achievement - I suspect this teacher's discomfort with the idea would vanish.
What if we kept a celeration chart on the web showing the District' Response Time to a parent's request for data? Just KNOWING the chart is publicly available should have an effect.
Or how about keeping a chart showing number of conversations board members have per week with non ed-speak people? ie.e parents or students?
Or a chart showing the number of conversations had without a lawyer present in the room?
Or a chart showing how many parent suggested curricula/materials/ideas were adopted?
wow!
Note the hostility from many public school parents towards charter schools.I don't see that here -- ??
I'm not sure most people know what a charter school is. A couple of years ago, people here still didn't. I'm still finding out myself, as a matter of fact (I read a novel definition in The Price of Government just the other day.)
Charting is an excellent idea.
Charting affects all forms of behavior -- it's an amazing tool.
In fact, it's such an amazing tool that when I really "need" to stop doing what I'm supposed to be doing (writing, dieting, using GrammarTrainer with Andrew), I stop charting my behavior. So long as I'm charting, I'm staying on task. If I want/need/am compelled to go off task, I stop charting.
Therein lies the weakness in the charting technique!
Charting done by others gets around that problem.
I think this is a great idea.
The more I think about this, the more I like it.
Of course, that's what my FOIL request is about: I'm trying to determine how often the district 'wins' Impartial Hearings.
The district's attorney, who is being paid by me and my fellow citizens, has denied my request for documents showing wins & losses & which Impartial Hearing Officers were involved.
We have the beginnings of an anonymous parent reporting system going on -- not handled by me, but by a couple of other parents.
Parents send their stories to these parents & the parents meet with the assistant superintendent to go over them.
No improvements have resulted, as far as I'm aware, but I believe there have been other good effects.
I now believe that parents & citizens need a means of tracking events----
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