aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

On bonuses & students being paid to excel

Someone tell me why Wall Street traders and corporate execs and every big shot under the sun deserves a bonus but it somehow is an open question as to whether or not it is a good idea to incentivize a kid in school to get a good grade or a public school teacher to do a better job with a couple of bucks.

Somehow then the demon dollar can do no good??? Give me a break!!!

From the NYTimes today, can students be paid to excel:

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.”

MEANWHILE: You might recall last weeks rant on this topic was triggered by the buzz about Abilene Christian University giving away iPhones to Freshman, which the Apple-fan blogosphere cheered. The Chronicle today notes the response is not always gratitude.

Students there have set up a Facebook group to protest the project and are questioning spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on iPhones when tuition is being raised by 7 percent.