Fwd: [ARN-state] Cash for Test Scores Controversy

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>
> Date: Wed Aug 8, 2007  6:23:02 AM US/Pacific
> To: ARN Main List <arn-l@interversity.org>,  ARN State 
> <ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [ARN-state] Cash for Test Scores Controversy
> Reply-To: ARN-state@yahoogroups.com
>
> SOME WONDER IF CASH FOR GOOD TEST SCORES IS THE WRONG KIND OF LESS
> New York Times "On Education" Column -- August 8, 2007
> by Joseph Berger
>
> 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.
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/08/education/08education.html
>
>
>
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