City to pay kids for good test scores

Oh yes, you read it right. Mayor Bloomberg is launching a pilot program that will pay some New York City public school students to get good test scores–both on the standardized tests and on the new interim assessments. Read the press release here.

This is part of the Mayor’s new poverty-fighting initiative. A “conditional cash transfer” plan rewards poor people for certain desired behaviors. Modeled after a similar program in Mexico City, it pays families, for example, $25 a month if their 4th graders attend school 95 percent of the month ($50 a month, half to the parent and half to the student, for middle schoolers good attendance.) It pays $50 to the parent if their elementary school student gets a library card, and it pays $50 to the high school student who gets one.

But they haven’t tried this angle in Mexico: NYC families are to get $300 for their elementary students ($350 for middle schoolers) who reach proficiency or improve by some set amount on the standardized tests. In addition, high school students get $600 for each Regents test they pass and family and student split $400 when the student graduates.

There’s more.

Fourth and 7th graders in 40 selected schools will get paid to take the 10 interim assessments (five each in ELA and math), and get paid more for high scores on them. So much for “no stakes” assessments, which is how Joel Klein characterized the interim assessments. Now, here is a test where the stakes are so high that if a student doesn’t do well the family might not eat.

You can read a detailed list of the incentives here [PDF], and more about conditional cash transfers here. They are a hot international topic, which makes this experiment very cool for our mayor and chancellor, but what about their subjects? Our schools and our poor folk have become guinea pigs for a social experiment that could have a lot of unforseen consequences, not all of them good.

Could parents pressure teachers on grading or attendance? Could children feel unfairly responsible for their family’s economic straits? Could tests become an even more nauseating experience for students who believe their parents are depending on the outcome for household money? Will effort or improvement count or only certain benchmarks?

This is a two-year pilot program in selected high-needs neighborhoods and in 40 schools. It is experimental, but that doesn’t take away the stakes for some of our most vulnerable kids. Someone better tread very carefully here.

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