What Did You Earn in School Today?

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

This set of six letters, including one from FairTest's new Executive 
Director, appeared at the top of the Sunday, March 9, 2008 New York 
Times editorial page

WHAT DID YOU EARN IN SCHOOL TODAY?
New York Times -- Letters-to-the-Editor
March 9, 2009

To the Editor:

Re “Next Question: Can Students Be Paid to Excel?” (front page, March 
5), about a program to reward teachers and students for test performance 
at P.S. 188 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan:

I was a student teacher at P.S. 188 and am familiar with the school’s 
focus on state tests. I was shocked that educated professionals would 
support an initiative to pay students for test scores.

As a middle-school English teacher who constantly strives to help 
students realize that reading and writing are a larger part of life than 
a short state test, I detest the concept of rewarding their performance 
with money. Poor students who do basic academic work because it results 
in cash are merely being coached to perform, and the people really 
benefiting are school professionals and politicians.

This initiative sends the message that learning for learning’s sake is 
obsolete. Paying students for test scores reduces the teaching of 
English to a transaction, one in which a teacher sells students methods 
of fooling test graders.

This is not an education.

Julie Edmonds
New York, March 5, 2008

- -

To the Editor:

There is a simple equity point to be made about this initiative: these 
children respond to the same stimulus that middle- and 
upper-middle-class children respond to, one that has always been known 
by parents. Allowance and allowance bonuses, gifts, trips and other 
rewards of monetary value can motivate kids to do well in school.

Why not give these less fortunate kids the same opportunity if their 
success and futures are at stake?

Tony Simmons
St. Paul, March 5, 2008

The writer is director of development at the High School for Recording 
Arts/Studio 4.

- -

To the Editor:

New York City’s experiment with paying students and teachers for 
improved test results is misguided. Research in other school systems, 
including studies presented to the American Economic Association, 
demonstrates that similar programs do not improve learning.

Like steroids, “bribes” and “bounties” may boost performance in the 
short run, but the long-term impact is not positive. In fact, academic 
achievement drops off when students enter classes that lack such 
incentives. Without the artificial stimulus, their motivation to learn 
is undermined.

Also, these programs move schools further away from a focus on the whole 
child and toward becoming test-prep centers. Elevating test scores into 
the sole “coin” of the educational realm virtually guarantees that 
students cannot receive the rich education needed to succeed in a 
complex society.

Jesse Mermell
Executive Director, National Center for Fair and Open Testing
Cambridge, Mass., March 5, 2008

- -

To the Editor:

Checkbook strategies to reward students and teachers run the risk of 
incurring Campbell’s law.

In the 1970s, the social scientist Donald T. Campbell wrote that the 
more any quantitative indicator is used for decision-making, the more it 
will be subject to corruption and the more it will corrupt the very 
process it is intended to monitor.

With pressure mounting to incorporate into classrooms the same tactics 
used in boardrooms, we better be ready for the same unethical behavior 
in schools that has characterized corporations.

Walt Gardner
Los Angeles, March 5, 2008

The writer is a retired teacher.

- -

To the Editor:

What happens when students who earned money for test scores go to a new 
school or grade where they don’t receive money? Will they keep working hard?

As a high school teacher in the Bronx, I know that many of my students 
would not respond to a cash reward with increased intrinsic motivation 
that would last beyond the reward.

Giving bonuses to teachers will work the way it does in the corporate 
world; giving bonuses to students will be one more reward that 
conditions students in the wrong way — to be selfish and materialistic.

Adam Feinberg
Brooklyn, March 5, 2008

- -

To the Editor:

My 15-year-old son, while generally good at academics, was struggling 
with classroom behavior issues. Finally, when he was in ninth grade, in 
total frustration, I asked him, “What could I promise you that would 
give you the incentive to behave for the rest of the year?” His answer? 
A Sony PlayStation.

To his shock, I agreed (although not without some stomach-churning over 
the price of the gauntlet he had laid down). In his next two report 
cards, every single teacher commented on his remarkable turnaround. 
Since I believe a deal is a deal, and he delivered on his side, I 
delivered on mine. His behavior has not been an issue since.

Sharon Barr
Philadelphia, March 5, 2008