Re: What Did You Earn in School Today?

[aburke5054@aol.com]

You've got to love the letter from the teacher who says that giving 
teachers bonuses is business as usual, but paying kids would only 
corrupt them.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>
To: ARN Main List <arn-l@interversity.org>; arn2-strategy 
<arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>; ARN State <ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 6:12 am
Subject: [arn-l] What Did You Earn in School Today?

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This initiative sends the message that learning for learning’s sake is
obsolete.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



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