Fwd: [LiteracyForAll] Bribes as school reform: Crawford comments

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Stephen Krashen <skrashen@yahoo.com>
> Date: Thu Aug 9, 2007  4:46:35 PM US/Pacific
> To: literacyForAll@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [LiteracyForAll] Bribes as school reform: Crawford comments
> Reply-To: LiteracyForAll@yahoogroups.com
>
> Re: “Some Wonder if Cash for Good Test Scores Is the
> Wrong Kind of Lesson” (On Education, Aug. 9):
>
> Establish an accountability system based on short-term
> outputs. Count only the outputs that can be measured
> on a standardized test. Use test scores to set
> arbitrary targets for progress. Mandate severe
> consequences for failure to meet those targets. Create
> an atmosphere of high stakes and high stress for
> teachers and students alike.
> Is it any wonder that bribery has become the latest
> stage of “school reform”?
> James Crawford
> President,  Institute for Language and Education
> Policy
>
>
>
> Some Wonder if Cash for Good Test Scores Is the Wrong
> Kind of Lesson
> By JOSEPH BERGER
> Published: August 8, 2007
> Should cash be used to spur children to do better on
> reading and math tests?
> Suzanne Windland, a homeowner raising three children
> in a placid enclave of eastern Queens, doesn’t think
> so. Her seventh grader, Alexandra, she said, had
> perfect scores last year. But she doesn’t want New
> York City’s Department of Education to hand her $500
> in spending cash for that achievement. That’s what
> Alexandra would earn if her school was part of a pilot
> program that will reward fourth and seventh graders
> with $100 to $500, depending on how well they perform
> on 10 tests in the next year.
> Mrs. Windland wants Alexandra to do well for all the
> timeless reasons — to cultivate a love of learning,
> advance to more competitive schools and the like. She
> has on occasion bought her children toys or taken them
> out for dinner when they brought home pleasurable
> report cards, but she does not believe in dangling
> rewards beforehand.
> “It’s like giving kids an allowance because they wake
> up every morning and brush their teeth and go off to
> school,” she said. “That’s their job. That’s what
> they’re supposed to be doing.”
> Actually, Alexandra will probably not be eligible for
> the reward because the program, which has been adapted
> from a similar Mexican cash incentives plan, is aimed
> largely at schools with students from low-income
> families. Mrs. Windland, who grew up for a time on
> food stamps but now works as coordinator of volunteers
> for a social services agency, thinks it is unfair that
> Alexandra will see other seventh graders being
> rewarded for far lower scores, while she savors only
> the intangible plums of pride and satisfaction.
> Mrs. Windland predicts that the impact of the program
> may be paradoxical, with resentment depressing the
> achievement of hard workers.
> “The kids who don’t get reimbursed are going to say,
> ‘Why should I bother!’ ” Mrs. Windland said.
> There are parents who support the program. And Schools
> Chancellor Joel I. Klein responds to skeptics by
> arguing that no one has figured out how to get more
> poorer children engaged in learning. Trumpeting the
> long-term benefits of education, the better jobs and
> lives well lived has not worked. Cash just might.
> “There are lots of kids who think education is not
> relevant to them, who think education is a waste of
> time,” he said in an interview.
> Still, critics warn Mr. Klein to be prepared for a
> backlash from families, both poor and more well off.
> The program will foster “ill will,” said Tim Johnson,
> chairman of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council,
> whose members include Mrs. Windland.
> “The word bribe comes to mind,” he said. “You
> certainly don’t want kids with identical abilities,
> where one gets paid and the other doesn’t.”
> Some parents, like Nakida Chambers-Camille, a school
> administrative assistant who lives in St. Albans,
> Queens, think the program should be given a shot. Ms.
> Chambers-Camille has a seventh grader, Leana, at a
> school that probably won’t qualify. Leana, she
> chuckled, may think that is unfair. But Ms. Camille
> believes such sweeteners may ultimately benefit her
> daughter. “If that’s going to help the child my child
> is playing with, then I’m all for it,” she said. “I
> want my child associating with people who have
> education as a priority. If that child is not
> learning, that child will pull my child down with
> her.”
> But Mr. Klein also has some opponents in poorer
> communities that might benefit. Robert A. Reed Jr.,
> president of the parents’ association of Public School
> 46 in Harlem, a school where nearly all students
> qualify for free lunches, called the program “dead
> wrong” in an e-mail interview, saying children learn
> “because they want it, not because they’re getting
> paid.”
> Mr. Klein, who grew up in public housing, could recall
> nothing more in the way of carrots and sticks than an
> allowance raise or a grounding for one of his bad
> report cards. His interest in succeeding was quite
> conventional.
> “I wanted my parents’ approval,” Mr. Klein said. “I
> found education interesting and exciting and I engaged
> it in those terms. I thought education would create
> opportunities my family didn’t have. My father said if
> you want to grow up and not live in public housing,
> pay attention in school.”
> The crucial if amorphous role homes play in whether a
> child succeeds is why Mr. Johnson thinks the
> chancellor should come to grips with the limits of
> what schools can do.
> Other critics of the new program, like Sol Stern, a
> senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, think Mr.
> Klein should put the incentives into college funds,
> saying instant cash undermines the idea of learning
> for its own sake.
> Another parent, Joan Rose Palacios, whose daughter
> Olivia is a fourth grader in Queens, wondered: “What
> happens when the money dries up? You pull a carrot
> away, do they stop working?” But, she added, she is
> keeping an open mind because she feels that schools in
> poor neighborhoods need more aid.
> The pilot, devised by Roland G. Fryer, a 30-year-old
> Harvard economist who has studied racial inequality in
> schools, is part of a wider program by Mayor Michael
> R. Bloomberg’s administration that will offer cash to
> adults for keeping a job, maintaining health
> insurance, attending teacher conferences and getting
> children to show up at school.
> Laura Rawlings, an economist for the World Bank, which
> finances $1.2 billion worth of incentive programs in
> 12 countries like Mexico, says such programs have
> raised school attendance.
> The programs can be favorably seen as a form of income
> maintenance that replaces pure entitlements by
> requiring parents to commit to behaviors society
> prefers. But the Mexican program does not reward
> children for passing tests. And it may be hard to
> explain to children, sensitive to any unfairness, why
> one child is getting money while another with better
> grades is not.
> E-mail: joeberg@nytimes.com
>
>
>
>
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