GRADE$$$ and TE$$$T $$$CORE$$$

26011383_1775530cbe_oWhat do you do with a struggling school or student? Bring in stronger teachers? NO. Improve the student to teacher ratio? NO. Offer before and after school support classes? NO.

What you do is throw money at the problem, and I do not mean investing the money in ways that will improving the educational system. What some groups are trying to do is throw money at students as a way to get the students to do better on state tests. Some say incentive, others say bribe.

Do better? (Is it really better? Read on….)

In one study students even earned pre-paid cellphones for high state test scores and grades. Is it just me, or does this sound a lot like a magazine drive? This learn-for-money reform comes across as, well, I hate to say it…icky.

Read the original article.

Some research says it will improve scores. Some research shows mixed results. Some research shows that the long-term effects of incentives are unknown: what will happen when the cash-cow is no longer there?

(Notice how in the original article the references to the incentives improving learning are few. It is primarily about improving test scores.)

Alfie Kohn wrote an article called The Risk of Rewards and argues that rewards and incentives reduce the desire to achieve. Do rewards motivate? Alfie says absolutely, but the rewards only motivate the person to get the rewards. Nothing more.

By giving a monetary reward (or a cell phone) for learning, thousands of students are having their desire to learn taken away from them and replaced with the desire for something else–greed. Learning and greed are not the same thing. I would place them as opposites.

The idea to use money to motivate students is simple and I can see why some people believe it to be the panacea. However, it is too simple. There will not be any lasting effects. Plus, it connects learning with a negative. 

I feel sorry for those students who will some day, soon, have their view of education ruined again (the first time would be with the money incentive, although the students were probably not aware of that as a ruining) when they have to relearn how to learn for learning.

"You pay a price in motivation," says Barry Schwartz, a cognitive psychology professor at Swarthmore College. Cash incentives could ultimately diminish students’ desire to learn for non-financial reasons, he says.

This all smacks in the face of what I know to be best for education. It cheapens the reason to learn, why we learn. I know it will not create those "life-long learners" that districts include in their mission statement.

If this is the way education is to go, we will end up selling our students short.

What do you think?

For more on this topic, I recommend a book by Alfie Kohn, entitled Punished by Rewards where the argument is show again and again that people will do inferior work when they are given rewards. Counterintuitive…sure. True…yes.

For more on this insanity, I send you now to 14 middle schools in D.C. who will be paid (off) for getting to class on time, attendance, completion of homework, displaying manners, and earning "high" grades.

A high-stakes test video for your enjoyment. PS…the "choose answer ‘C’" is a joke. I have received comments in the past that this is not a good test strategy. True. Remember, the whole thing is a joke.

Money photo graciously granted by skeettalee.

UPDATE (2008.09.30): The Core Knowledge Blog has a great update on this topic. Attendance and punctuality have improved, but grades have not. I guess if it means being in the right place at the right time, money will get you there. If it means working on your own time for however long it takes to get the learning, money is just not enough.

9 thoughts on “GRADE$$$ and TE$$$T $$$CORE$$$

  1. Bob Heiny

    Thanks, Travis, for expanding on your point. You add a reasonable voice to teacher blogging. I appreciate reason and think students profit from teacher who give it priority.

  2. Travis

    @Bob Heiny, thanks for your thoughts. you do have my specific point correct. Thanks. However, my point ends there, at the idea of providing rewards for students getting better grades or test scores will lead to negative results.
    Taking my point and linking it to an inference on what you infer teachers thinking (wanting more pay for “higher quality” work) in an unneeded link. I would say the same for merit pay, which is what the more pay for “better” work essentially becomes. I would say that merit pay is not the solution and it will lead to negative results as well.
    Since you have the idea going, here is something to think about. Is there a difference between between the “reward” systems in the adult work place and the reward systems in the childhood school place? Does the Christmas bonus at the tire store have the same purpose as that of the 14 year old who gets an “A” in science?
    Additionally, is there a difference between creating a system where a reward is expected (i.e., if you do this, I will give you this) and a system where the reward is unexpected? There is quite a bit of research on this and it is interesting.
    For the record, when I was a kid, I wanted to get money from my parents for the grades that I achieved. My friends did so why shouldn’t I? However, my parents both said that to get money for grades would turn the act of learning in that class into an act of going for the money, not the knowledge. I understood what they were saying, but I still wanted the money. However, my needs were always met by my parents so I did not need the extra cash and, in the end, I kept on learning for the love of learning, not because I was looking for an extra 10 spot.
    I have the same system for my sons. For chores as well. My sons do not do their chores because they expect to get 3 dollars at the end of the week. They do their chores because it is how they can contribute to the functioning of the family. I do the laundry, I cook, I clean, I take the kids to school….do I get an allowance? No. I do it because it is for the greater good of the family. We are a team and I think that if someone gave me money for that, two things would happen (1) the act of helping the family would be cheapened and (2) I would now be in a system where I expected it and someone would oversee what I do and be able to make judgement on the level of my work or how I complete my work or when I complete my work.

  3. Bob Heiny

    You make a good point: any incentive program has it’s uses and abuses. Let’s see if I understand your specific point, Travis, about $ as an incentive. By inference from what some teachers argue, it’s OK to pay teachers for doing a better job (however teachers define better and job), but it’s not OK to pay students for doing their better job better?

  4. Travis

    @TL, Oh yes, I have thought about that grades as a barrier to learning. That is an often tackled topic and I have a draft post on it. I am sure that every blogger in education has dealt with it in some way. Do you have a post of it on your blog? http://www.geyser03.blogspot.com/
    Could you live without grades? Some teachers can, saying that the grade does not guide the instruction anyway (these teachers do use some form of assessment so students can see progress and guide future studies). Some teachers cannot, saying that the grade is what keeps the relationship in the classroom working and the students motivated.
    I like Kohn’s article on this topic with the pun, “De-Grading”, because it is all too true.

  5. TL

    Great topic Travis. What Kohn does a good job of proving is that incentives (whatever they may be) are only a short term solution to long term, often ignored, issues. In his book, Punished by Rewards, Kohn even states that GRADES are horrible for the learning process; they stifle creativity for both student and teacher. Think about that as a teacher; grades are a barrier to learning!

  6. Travis

    @Kim, No problem on posting this topic. Glad it worked. It seemed timely as many of the posts I have read lately seem to deal with education as a business, merit pay, incentives, and testing (scores). Success in school is crucial, but how to get it?
    @ms_teacher, only too true “The students who never had a problem with attendance in the first place” received the iPods. So, if that system was to be reviewed, I wonder if it would be shown to be successful based on the fact that students did, indeed, have high attendance. Sadly, that may be how the data was interpreted although that would be spurious. In a related system of incentives, my middle son, five years old, was in pre-kindergarten last year and because we attended some doctor appointments, he was absent a couple of days and was not able to get the “perfect attendance” award. He was saddened by this, and I was saddened that he was sad. We talked. Hopefully he understood that it does not matter and that going to school is its own reward and he goes because of his friends and the learning, not to get certificates. My son would never have been sad had the certificate not existed. However, since it did, it turned his two days of absence, and subsequently the school experience, into a negative, “I just do not compare to others”. A similar thing happened when his work for the day did not get a sticker. It was an oversight on the teacher’s part and the teacher is a good teacher. However, it demonstrated to me the power that those incentives (external, bribe-like) have on children and why they should be used cautiously, not connected to an action, or not used at all. Thanks for your thoughts. You gave me much about which to think.

  7. ms_teacher

    Last year, our school district decided to offer Ipods in a raffle for students with perfect attendance. Guess who won the Ipods? The students who never had a problem with attendance in the first place. There are a variety of reasons as to why students miss school and the incentive of an Ipod doesn’t address any of those reasons.

  8. Kim

    Oh, Travis, thanks for taking on this topic. When school officials give monetary rewards or gifts to kids for doing well in school, we are taking away their intrinsic motivation. What is wrong with doing something because it is the right thing to do or because it’s good for the person doing it. Will these kids ever be able to do anything on their own without expecting a reward other than the satisfaction of a job well done? Will we have dangle a carrot in front of them to get them to go to college or find a job? Or even to be good parents to their own children? What a sad precedence we are setting!

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