A group blog of ideas and opinions about school reform from graduate students enrolled in an Urban School Reform course.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Incentivizing Students
The cover article on this week’s Time Magazine, "Should Kids be Bribed to Do Well in School", got me thinking about providing financial incentives to students in Baltimore in order to improve attendance, passing rates, and academic achievement. The idea explored in the Time article, which was largely based on information collected by a Harvard economist Ronald Fryer Jr. gathered in a multi-city performance study, is that by giving students money for superior academic behavior, student achievement (aka test scores) will increase. Ultimately, the goal is to chip away at the learning gap by paying kids to be better students. While the results of Fryer’s study are mixed and heavily contested, Fryer did find that focused, learning-based incentive programs (like paying students per book that they read) lead to better results than simply paying students for good test scores throughout the year. I guess the idea is that when students are just encouraged by money to do better on tests, they probably won’t do any better because they don’t really know how.
Nevertheless, I started to think about how creating appropriate incentives in Baltimore schools that are focused (and learning-based) might create positive results for our students. For example, paying students to participate in a certain number of review sessions for HSA tests or for completing homework assignments could lead to better city test scores (and perhaps higher graduation rates?). Obviously Baltimore schools runs into the perpetual issue of funding. What public school in its right mind is going to start doling out cash or prizes to “good” students (who are essentially doing just what they are supposed to do) when the school can’t even afford to pay for a crossing guard? (For more info on crossing guard cuts, see http://wjz.com/local/school.budget.cuts.2.1633032.html.) Schools could start tapping into private funding, but many schools might not care enough to take the time and effort to create such a program (especially if positive results are not a guarantee).
Despite the funding issues and the question of positive results, I think there are certain ideas that Baltimore City Schools can gain from the Fryer study. While giving students money might not be the solution to the city's education troubles, better motivational efforts and school-based positive reinforcements (instead of simply punishments) ought to be emphasized in schools. I truly think that good students (and schools) ought to be commended and appreciated more in Baltimore. I agree that it is difficult to overlook big problems in order to see some good in Baltimore schools, and that too much optimism can indeed be a bad thing, but some students could use a little bit more motivation and positivity in school than educators are currently doling out.
Within classrooms I think teachers have this same battle. Ultimately we want our students to be intrinsically motivated to learn, but what does it really take to get them to that point of motivation? Does it take starting with money? Candy? Grades? If these types of incentives started in elementary school and continued throughout their educational careers, would students ever develop intrinsic motivation or just always expect some reward for their work?
I agree with your point that positive recognition systems should be in place in our schools. In what can be challenging environments, sometimes the students who misbehave get paid more attention to than those who are always making good choices. Positive recognition could transform that backwards system. It may even motivate some of the students to do well because they crave attention. Why not make that positive whether than negative attention? I think before districts begin handing out monetary incentives to students, they need to consider if similar or better results can be reached for a cheaper price tag.
I agree that this is a very controversial issue, paying kids to do well in school. I actually worked with a teacher last year who would give money to students who were quiet or good in his class that day. As adults, we do expect compensation for our hard work so it could be a bit hypocritical to say that the kids don't deserve the same. However, it is definitely a rite of passage and it is our job as teachers to find a way to motivate students to do well and own their education...without expecting immediate monetary benefits. Those will hopefully come after the education as been achieved.
I greatly appreciate the point that practices, and not results should be targeted in the event that students are incentivized with cash or any other sort of prize. To me, the nature of the incentive is important and relevant, yes, but I do believe it is secondary to the issue of what we are incentivizing. As it was mentioned, we can offer students all we like for higher test scores, but that doesn't mean students who are very intersted will necessarily know how to do it.
We need to invest in practices. Where it comes to HSA scores, like the blogger said, we can anticipate far better results from motivating students to attend study sessions and engage in the practices that would tend to lead to higher test scores. And even on the classroom level, whether we give out candy, pencils or preferred activity time, what defines a successful motivational strategy will be the specific rules we create for the game. We can't just incentivize outcomes. Those in greatest need of incentives won't know how to reach point B from point A, so we need to motivate them to follow instructions step-by-step, choosing which steps to establish as milestones, and thereby familiarizing students with the processes that their lesson objectives require.
I hate to call motivating factor bribery. Tricking the kids to learn with money is a great tool for teaching kids how to negotiate and become marketable in a capitalistic society. In a world run by money, should we utilize real world examples to reward the kids for going above and beyond the norm? Competition is tough as it relates to the real world, and driving that competition includes jobs; in the end, this equates to money. I have found, at least with many of my colleagues, that the foremost benefit that drives them to continue to work is money. Why not subject the kids to such a realistic view of the world?
4 comments:
Within classrooms I think teachers have this same battle. Ultimately we want our students to be intrinsically motivated to learn, but what does it really take to get them to that point of motivation? Does it take starting with money? Candy? Grades? If these types of incentives started in elementary school and continued throughout their educational careers, would students ever develop intrinsic motivation or just always expect some reward for their work?
I agree with your point that positive recognition systems should be in place in our schools. In what can be challenging environments, sometimes the students who misbehave get paid more attention to than those who are always making good choices. Positive recognition could transform that backwards system. It may even motivate some of the students to do well because they crave attention. Why not make that positive whether than negative attention? I think before districts begin handing out monetary incentives to students, they need to consider if similar or better results can be reached for a cheaper price tag.
I agree that this is a very controversial issue, paying kids to do well in school. I actually worked with a teacher last year who would give money to students who were quiet or good in his class that day. As adults, we do expect compensation for our hard work so it could be a bit hypocritical to say that the kids don't deserve the same. However, it is definitely a rite of passage and it is our job as teachers to find a way to motivate students to do well and own their education...without expecting immediate monetary benefits. Those will hopefully come after the education as been achieved.
I greatly appreciate the point that practices, and not results should be targeted in the event that students are incentivized with cash or any other sort of prize. To me, the nature of the incentive is important and relevant, yes, but I do believe it is secondary to the issue of what we are incentivizing. As it was mentioned, we can offer students all we like for higher test scores, but that doesn't mean students who are very intersted will necessarily know how to do it.
We need to invest in practices. Where it comes to HSA scores, like the blogger said, we can anticipate far better results from motivating students to attend study sessions and engage in the practices that would tend to lead to higher test scores. And even on the classroom level, whether we give out candy, pencils or preferred activity time, what defines a successful motivational strategy will be the specific rules we create for the game. We can't just incentivize outcomes. Those in greatest need of incentives won't know how to reach point B from point A, so we need to motivate them to follow instructions step-by-step, choosing which steps to establish as milestones, and thereby familiarizing students with the processes that their lesson objectives require.
I hate to call motivating factor bribery. Tricking the kids to learn with money is a great tool for teaching kids how to negotiate and become marketable in a capitalistic society. In a world run by money, should we utilize real world examples to reward the kids for going above and beyond the norm?
Competition is tough as it relates to the real world, and driving that competition includes jobs; in the end, this equates to money.
I have found, at least with many of my colleagues, that the foremost benefit that drives them to continue to work is money. Why not subject the kids to such a realistic view of the world?
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