More on NYC Test Score "Bribes"and "Bounties"

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

NEXT QUESTION: CAN STUDENTS BE PAID TO EXCEL?

New York Times -- March 5, 2008
by Jennifer Medina

The fourth graders squirmed in their seats, waiting for their prizes. In 
a few minutes, they would learn how much money they had earned for their 
scores on recent reading and math exams. Some would receive nearly $50 
for acing the standardized tests, a small fortune for many at this 
school, P.S. 188 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

When the rewards were handed out, Jazmin Roman was eager to celebrate 
her $39.72. She whispered to her friend Abigail Ortega, “How much did 
you get?” Abigail mouthed a barely audible answer: $36.87. Edgar 
Berlanga pumped his fist in the air to celebrate his $34.50.

The children were unaware that their teacher, Ruth Lopez, also stood to 
gain financially from their achievement. If students show marked 
improvement on state tests during the school year, each teacher at 
Public School 188 could receive a bonus of as much as $3,000.

School districts nationwide have seized on the idea that a key to 
improving schools is to pay for performance, whether through bonuses for 
teachers and principals, or rewards like cash prizes for students. New 
York City, with the largest public school system in the country, is in 
the forefront of this movement, with more than 200 schools experimenting 
with one incentive or another. In more than a dozen schools, students, 
teachers and principals are all eligible for extra money, based on 
students’ performance on standardized tests.

Each of these schools has become a test to measure whether, as Mayor 
Michael R. Bloomberg posits, tangible cash rewards can turn a school 
around. Can money make academic success cool for students disdainful of 
achievement? Will teachers pressure one another to do better to get a 
schoolwide bonus?

So far, the city has handed out more than $500,000 to 5,237 students in 
58 schools as rewards for taking several of the 10 standardized tests on 
the schedule for this school year. The schools, which had to choose to 
participate in the program, are all over the city.

“I’m not saying I know this is going to fix everything,” said Roland G. 
Fryer, the Harvard economist who designed the student incentive program, 
“but I am saying it’s worth trying. What we need to try to do is start 
that spark.”

Nationally, school districts have experimented with a range of 
approaches. Some are giving students gift certificates, McDonald’s meals 
and class pizza parties. Baltimore is planning to pay struggling 
students who raise their state test scores.

Critics of these efforts say that children should be inspired to learn 
for knowledge’s sake, not to earn money, and question whether prizes 
will ultimately lift achievement. Anticipating this kind of argument, 
New York City was careful to start the student experiment with private 
donations, not taxpayer money, avoiding some of the controversy that has 
followed the Baltimore program, which uses public money.

Some principals had no qualms about entering the student reward program. 
Virginia Connelly, the principal of Junior High School 123, in the 
Soundview section of the Bronx, has experimented with incentives for 
years, like rewarding good behavior, attendance and grades with play 
money that can be spent in the student store.

“We’re in competition with the streets,” Ms. Connelly said. “They can go 
out there and make $50 illegally any day of the week. We have to do 
something to compete with that.”

Barbara Slatin, the principal of P.S. 188, on the other hand, said she 
was initially skeptical about paying students for doing well. Her 
students, many of whom live in the nearby housing projects along Avenue 
D, would surely welcome the money, she said, but she worried about 
sending the wrong message. “I didn’t want to connect the notion of money 
with academic success,” she said.

But after a sales pitch by Dr. Fryer, Ms. Slatin said she was persuaded 
to try. “We say we want to do whatever it takes, so if this is it, I am 
going to get on board,” she said.

In 1996, P.S. 188 was considered to be failing by the State Education 
Department, but it has improved dramatically over the last decade. In 
the fall, it received an A on the city’s report card. Still, fewer than 
60 percent of the students passed the state math test last year, and 
fewer than 40 percent did so in reading.

Teachers at the school said that this year, they had noticed a better 
attitude among the students, which they attributed to the incentive 
program. One recent day, fourth graders talked eagerly about the 
computer games they have been playing to get ready for this week’s state 
math exam. During the school’s recent winter break, dozens of students 
showed up for extra tutoring to prepare.

“My teacher told me to study more, so I study,” said Jazmin, who had 
already taken eight standardized exams this school year. “I did 
multiplication tables. I learned to divide.” When asked why she took so 
many tests, Jazmin replied earnestly, “To show them we have education 
and we learn stuff from education and the tests.”

The students spoke excitedly about their plans for the money. Several 
boys said they were saving for video games. Abigail said she would use 
it to pay for “a car, a house and college,” apparently unaware that the 
roughly $100 she’s earned this school year might not stretch that far. 
Another little girl said she would use the money simply for food. When 
asked to elaborate, she answered quietly, “Spaghetti.”

Changing the attitudes of seventh graders seems to be more complicated. 
At J.H.S. 123 in the Bronx, for example, a seventh-grade English class 
was asked one morning if there were too many standardized tests. Every 
hand in the room shot up to answer with a defiant yes. But at the same 
time, the students all agreed that receiving money for doing well on a 
test was a good idea, saying it made school more exciting, and made 
doing well more socially acceptable.

“This is the hardest grade to pass,” said Adonis Flores, a 13-year-old 
who has struggled in his classes at times. “This motivates us better. 
Everybody wants some money, and nobody wants to get left behind.”

Would it be better to get the money as college scholarships? Shouts of 
“No way!” echoed through the room. “We might not all go to college,” one 
student protested.

So is doing well in school cool? A few hands slowly inched up. But when 
their principal, Ms. Connelly, asked what could be done to make being 
the A-plus student seem as important as being the star basketball 
player, she was met with silence.

For teachers, bonuses come with ambivalence. So toxic was the idea of 
merit pay for individual teachers that the union insisted that bonus 
pools be awarded to whole schools to be divided up by joint 
labor-management committees, either evenly among union members or by 
singling out exceptional teachers.

Still, nearly 90 percent of the 200 schools offered the chance to join 
the teacher bonus program are participating, after a vote with each 
school’s chapter of the teachers’ union. At many schools this year, 
including P.S. 188 and J.H.S. 123, a decision has already been made to 
distribute any money they get across the board, and they are trying to 
include secretaries and other staff members as well.

No teachers were willing to say the rewards were unwelcome, but few said 
the potential windfall would push them to work harder.

“It’s better than a slap in the face,” said Ms. Lopez, who has taught at 
P.S. 188 for more than a decade. “But honestly, I don’t think about it. 
We’re here every day working and pushing; that’s what we’ve been doing 
for years. We don’t come into this for the money, and most of us don’t 
leave it because of the money.”

Newer teachers seemed more positive, saying the bonus was a rare chance 
to be rewarded.

“I tell my students all the time that I can sit in the back and hand 
them worksheets and get the same amount of money as I do if I stand in 
front of the class working with high energy the entire time,” said 
Christina Varghese, the lead math teacher at J.H.S. 123, who is in her 
10th year of teaching. “What’s the motivation there? At least this gives 
us something to work toward.”

It will be months before Ms. Slatin and her teachers know whether they 
have earned the bonus, but initial test scores are promising. On one 
test designed to mimic the state math exam, 77 percent of fourth graders 
met state standards. Roughly half of those who did not were just below 
the cutoff, making it possible that more than 80 percent of the students 
would pass the test this year — a virtual dream for the school.

“We want to believe it, but it makes me nervous,” Ms. Slatin said. 
“Those are not numbers we are used to seeing.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/nyregion/05incentive.html