Time to reboot the old ed blog! After a couple months of constant planning and hectic teaching, I've finally found some time to really sit back and reflect on my experience. I've collected some nice artifacts to share and some recent articles that have really intrigued me. We'll start today with a discussion of a recent WaPo article on a controversial education reform project.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/09/AR2010040905180.html
The article describes a recent study on the use of cash incentives to motivate low-performing students in the classroom. Students could earn a maximum of $100 a month for attendance, homework and test scores. The study was conducted by Harvard economist Roland Fryer, who has advocated for such programs as a relatively cheap means of improving student performance, reports that his study produced results.
"To my surprise, incentive programs that rewarded process seemed to be more effective than those that rewarded outcomes," said Fryer
I must say that such a program seemed initially abhorrent to me. The idea of paying students for basic academic behavior seemed counterproductive to the fundamental idea behind education. Schools should be instilling in students a love for learning and a level of intrinsic motivation that small cash payments would interfere with. After some consideration, however, I have become a bit more open to the idea. Whether or not I like it, most behavior in society is motivated by money. Students attend school (both high school and post-secondary) being constantly reminded that failing to complete the requirements will result in financial penalties down the line. My own high school experience leads me to believe that this financial motivator was important even to students who genuinely cared about learning. The difference between high-performing schools in wealthy districts and low-performing schools in impoverished districts may be whether or not students actually connect school performance with tangible rewards. Students in my hometown of Livonia lived with or around individuals who had benefited clearly through education. They saw examples of education's impact on people's lives. Unfortunately, many poorer students lack these models. More likely, it seems to me, are students to believe that education does not produce the promised results for them. Using cash as an incentive could serve as a proxy for the financial motivators their more well-to-do peers draw upon on a more subtle level.
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This is truly food for thought, Sam. Like you, my first response (and even my second) was that this is crass and unsavory. I do, however, think that we ignore the association you point out between school and economic success (that some see all around them and others see much less frequently) at our peril (I'm reminded, for example, of Herbert Kohl's "I Won't Learn From You") So, to put it another way, absent the important social context that makes school look meaningful, or at least worth the bargain, maybe a connection needs to be made between school and economic benefit/value out of fairness, and out of a recognition that taking the (perhaps cliched) noble view of education is a luxury best indulged in from relatively high up the socio-economic status pole.
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