“I don’t care too much for money,” the Beatles tell us, “cause money can’t buy you love.” Hell, even hyper-capitalists like Warren Buffet know that. You can buy “a million dollars worth of sex,” but “you can’t buy a million dollars worth of love,” Buffet tells us with some irritation at this shortcoming of human existence.
Indeed, a society which places value on human dignity prohibits the commodification of certain intrinsically human qualities and entities — our liberty, our bodies [in whole or in part], and our intimate personal relations [notwithstanding Mr. Buffet's purchases].
Learning is one of those intrinsically human qualities that can’t be bought: it is part of who and what we are as human beings. The fuller we realize our human potential, the more we learn. Every good teacher knows that the essence of our job lies in nurturing the love of learning in our students, in helping them learn how to realize their human potential.
But in a world where the false idol of the market is slavishly worshiped by some, it was perhaps only a matter of time before some public choice economist who thinks that EVERYTHING should be for sale decided to experiment on poor children to see if learning, too, could be bought. Talk about making tests high stakes: a child is responsible for bringing home money which could make a real difference to what his or her family has to eat. And to our shame, this economist has found a partner here in New York City.
Now, just as Mr. Buffet has learned, money might buy you a debased form of the real thing — in this case, increasingly meaningless test scores — although even this is at doubt. But it can’t buy you the real thing, learning.
If there is such a need to experiment, and there is so much surplus money to invest in such as experiment, why not try this one? Every student who reads 25 challenging books on his or her own gets a $25 Barnes and Nobles or Borders gift certificate to buy his or her own books.
13 Comments:
1 roryslife
· Jun 19, 2007 at 8:06 pm
“Every student who reads 25 challenging books on his or her own gets a $25 Barnes and Nobles or Borders gift certificate to buy his or her own books.”
How do we determine if they really read the challenging books?
2 paulrubin
· Jun 19, 2007 at 8:50 pm
I know countless middle class parents who, over the years, tried different systems of positive and negative reinforcement to encourage their children to be successful. Sometimes it was just straight cash. In fact I remember doing that for a year myself, awarding $20 or some such number for every A on a report card in a major subject and $10 for A- with the proviso that if any grade fell below B-, the deal was off. It did work up to a point but as time went on I found that one child didn’t need the incentives anymore and the other didn’t benefit. I think it’s an overreaction to rip this plan without giving it a fair shot. The only two issues as I see it? The inevitable rebound effect the following year with the incentives withdrawn (but that would technically one of the important pieces of data if this is truly an experiment). And the continued insistence that this be more about test scores than anything else? Why not reward children for a great essay or for a wonderful spring concert or a great poster?
Now sure, in a utopian society, children should want to learn for the sake of learning. I did. I still do. And probably 4th grade is too early to do this. But I say this isn’t a utopian society and as long as it’s not out of taxpayer’s money, give the idea a real shot. We may learn something ourselves.
3 Leo Casey
· Jun 20, 2007 at 11:56 am
UPDATED
roryslife:
Pretty much the same we determine it now. Reading challenging books is part of the ELA performance objectives at the elementary grades.
paul rubin:
If parents want to try to buy their children’s learning, that is their prerogative. As a society we allow one parent to raise his/her children in a way that the next parent would find profoundly offensive. Parents might chose to pay their children to go to church/temple/mosque, to do their chores, and all manner of things to which other parents would have serious objections. But that is their right, just as it is the right of others to say “hell no” when it comes to commodifying their child’s responsibilities, the stepping stones to responsible adulthood and citizenship.
What we are talking about here is the NYC DOE imposing this on poor children, without even their parent’s consent.
UPDATE:
Since this comments was first posted, the DOE has informed Edwize that explicit parental consent will be required for students to participate in this program.
4 paulrubin
· Jun 20, 2007 at 8:16 pm
I actually met with the professor from Harvard overseeing this program for the DOE and while I have my doubts about the long term value of temporarily paying children for standardized test performance I did not get the impression that this would be forced down parents’ throats. The plan as it was explained was for student saving accounts to be set up in cooperation with one of the NY area banks so schools and students would not directly handle the money. Unless I misunderstand current law with respect to minors, parents will almost certainly have to approve their child’s participation in the program in writing. I don’t think any of us imagine a scenario where the DOE creates accounts for students where the student and parents have access without parental approval. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
The only questions that we should be dealing with are (and I’m only referring to the part I know about which is to pay $10-$50 per test up to a maximum of the 10 new tests under the McGraw Hill program aimed at 7th graders for 2007):
1. What’s the point of testing a program that would cost over half a billion dollars annually to scale up to all students in all grades?
2. What happens to the participants the following year when the incentive no longer exists? I would imagine resentment which could lead to backsliding worse than where they started at.
3. Are we getting so crazed about ELA and Math test score results that we will raise a generation of kids unable to do anything not covered by those tests?
4. Are there alternatives that should be simultaneously explored?
5. Is it or is it not naive to think that today’s kids are going to put in their best efforts simply because some of our elite think that’s what should be happening?
6. At what age are various incentives most and least appropriate?
7. Why are parents and teachers unable to encourage their children and students to put forth their best efforts without resorting to such an extreme scenario as to pay them?
8. How will these incentives play out to different groups of children within a city as diverse as NYC?
I have a little regard for the way NYC is running its schools as the next guy and unlike some of you I put my money where my mouth is by pulling my family into the suburbs and paying my thousands of dollars a year in property taxes. I also know that as a student in NYC, my incentive to perform well was a combination of fear of disappointing my parents, buying into the notion that success in school can somehow lead to success afterwards, and a personal and strong innate desire to excel and to learn new things. Today’s kids aren’t afraid of their parents or their teachers. They aren’t buying into the notion of school success leading to career success. And they don’t seem to value learning for learning’s sake. Perhaps, just perhaps, we need to experiment a bit to find other motivational tools and money MIGHT be one option. It may not be a popular opinion and I detest the idea that standardized tests are the deciding factor in determining success but I see little to lose by experimenting a bit. If it works, then there’s something to think about. If it doesn’t, so to do we have something to think about.
5 xkaydet65
· Jun 21, 2007 at 8:18 am
While I find myself in rare agreemnt with Mr. Casey, I want to add a moral dimension to this question. Only a smll cohort of children will receive these token awards. What does this say to the student who works, studies, and looks to succeed to the best of their ability when they are not rewarded.Is the quality of their effort diminished? Does this say that their efforts are less valued?
This is similar to my feelings about middle school summer school. What does it tell the student who comes 175 days a year. works seven periods a day and achieves a 70, which represents a success on their part, when they see a student who mailed in ten months of school and attends a six week summer session where he gets a metro card, lunch and breafast, and is required only to produce an I Search project as his assessment, when they both are placed in the same class in the next grade?
It says my effort is meaningless. That’s not only unfair, it’s absolutely immoral.
6 paulrubin
· Jun 21, 2007 at 2:06 pm
I think you draw the wrong conclusion though. Summer school is rarely a desirable place to be in July and August. It’s not as though middle school children are fighting to enter it. Additionally, the better point of view if you feel as you do is to make summer school more demanding and really enforce it in terms of allowing kids to move to the next grade. What I don’t see is how this has any bearing on the idea of developing better incentives for kids to do better in school other than the obvious which is that summer school is supposed to be a negative incentive to do better and negatives rarely are effective.
7 xkaydet65
· Jun 21, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Having taught MS in NYC for 21 years I’ve encountered too many children for whom summer school is no big deal. They’re with friends, have metro cards and are on the street by 1pm. And they never fail summer school.
How it dovetails with Bloomie’s project is that both efforts devalue the work of the kid who fulfills his responsibilities. Once we start using financial incentives to have people do what they’re supposed to do, bring a kid to the doctor, show up open school night, hold down a job for six weeks, once we do that we, as a society, acting through our government, devalue the actions of those of all socio economic groups who keep the oblogatoions of life. Finally, I’ve taught in areas as different as Manhasset and Bushwick. I’ve always met kids who don’t do the job. They are not interested, see no purpose, or just don’t feel like it. Do you think this behavior springs just from race and class? Why not give out the bucks to any kid who shows for a test, to any Mom who takes the kid for a check up?
The whole idea is beyond destructive.
8 NYC Educator
· Jun 21, 2007 at 7:47 pm
The rationale from Tweed about summer school is that the kids have done their “seat time.” It’s remarkable the buzzwords that come out of that place, as well as the salaries they pay people to think up such things.
If you’re an innovator, you must innovate. You need not pay any mind to history, or what makes neighboring schools work. You just need to come up with new ideas faster than people can figure out what crap your old ones were.
It’s worked like a charm for upwardly moblile, newly non-affiliated Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
9 Klein Crows, “Department Will Seek New and Innovative Approaches to Increase Pupil Achievement, We Will Go To any Ends To Achieve Our Goals.” « Ed In The Apple
· Jun 21, 2007 at 8:45 pm
[...] challenged the premise that children will not learn or succeed in school without monetary awards, others argue that [...]
10 paulrubin
· Jun 21, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I’m not referring at all to the other incentive stuff about holding a job, bringing kids to the doctor or other obligations you take on by the mere act of having children. You made a decision to have kids. Now you have to take care of them. But the kids have no say in their expectations regarding school. We’ve simply made this blanket assumption that children are to succeed in school because we insist on it. I don’t know about you but I work harder for more money. I take college credits for more money. And so on. In that respect incentive pay wouldn’t be a bad thing. The only problem I personally have with incentive pay for teachers is it shouldn’t be based primarily let alone solely on a pair of standardized test scores. There’s more to school than that and not every teacher contributes to those scores equally anyway. But the concept of incentives for kids isn’t something new. We give awards at graduation. We have honor roles. We make pizza parties. We give out free homework passes. And so on. A little cash for performance on tests just isn’t as revolutionary as you’re implying especially when being done as an experiment.
11 xkaydet65
· Jun 22, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Those extrinsic incentives you cite are, and have been long a part of the education scene. particularly in the lower grades. In my day, very long ago, the Sisters of harity gave gold stars. I couldn’t eat a gold star or buy something with it. It was a sign that my work was outstanding. My Work. It was like the manner in which a sailor or Marine is praised with the phrase Bravo Zulu by his superiors for a well done piece of work.
Money, cash, hard green indicates payment for a service. Particularly if it’s offered on a regular, formulaic basis. We are not in the business of paying students to work. And if we were, why should some work for pay while the rest work for free?
12 paulrubin
· Jun 22, 2007 at 6:14 pm
“And if we were, why should some work for pay while the rest work for free?”
This is AN EXPERIMENT scaled up larger than other American school systems to the best of my knowledge. If it works, which is debateable on all sides, then you scale it up to more and more grades in more and more schools. If it doesn’t work, you kill it and move on. That’s the nature of AN EXPERIMENT.
And like you, gold stars were very nice and I suppose for some kids still work in Kindergarten, 1st grade, maybe 2nd grade. But in case you hadn’t noticed, American public schools don’t work as well today as they did 30-50 years ago. So here’s an experiment that doesn’t directly attack the UFT, doesn’t impose more work on us, and from a logical standpoint, may positively impact the test scores that we’re being tortured with.
Furthermore, I don’t always get paid for a service. Sometimes services are volunteer work. Sometimes we get birthday presents, anniversary presents, and the like. Sometimes we gamble and win. Suppose we found that $500 per child average (say $200 a year in the early grades, $500 middle school, $800 high school) clearly brought up standardized test scores by say 50% across the board. Scaled up to the million or so kids, we’re talking 500 mil in what will soon be a $20 billion dollar budget. While your utopian sensibilities might be offended, that’s most certainly a scenario that requires investigation and careful consideration. On the other hand if scores decline or rise by more like 10%, then that money is better spent elsewhere. Again, that’s why we do such experiments. We simply a have private university professor who helped raise a few million who wishes to conduct an experiment that sees if monetary incentives can meaningfully drive test scores. As long as it’s carefully monitored, and not forced down parents’ throats, it seems far less harmful than 90% of what the NYCDOE has done to kids in the Bloomberg era.
13 phyllis c. murray
· Jul 2, 2007 at 10:22 am
Teachers have always used incentives to motivate students. They simply work. I remember reading a book
a week in 6th Grade just to get a gold star on the chart which was posted in the back of the classroom.
I reward my students all the time for their good work. The recognition might just be a kind word or a small gift. It might be something that “blings” or an activity book from McDonalds or Burger King. These things cost nothing but mean everything. It means that you care.
Kids “work” for their teachers. The teachers whom they feel care about them. The key is to make an investment. Mary McLeod Bethune said it best: Invest in a human soul, who knows, it may be a diamond in the rough.” Lest we forget, Bethune started a university with just a few pennies.
The private funds which will be used to “pay” students for long term results are not an novel idea. Some parents do this
all the time because they have the economic means to reward their children. However, I feel these “new” private funds might better serve all students if they were invested in the school. Our inner city public schools do not have the resources which are needed to enable our students to compete with their peers in the surrounding areas. Educational supplies and materials for science labs, libraries, social studies,music, art, and math are sorely needed.
I remember how one teacher spent $1000.00 just to make are special education classroom “ready” in September for her students. Our teachers are spending money, weekly. One teacher remarked that she had spent $60.00 on materials over the weekend and then wondered how she was going to manage to get to work.
Our teachers have to underwrite the cost of excursions around the city and beyond the city. And even if they receive free tickets for the students, the pubic transportation subway, taxi, buses and snacks have to be underwritten in the evenings and weekends. Our students have virtually no cash. It is the concerned teacher who covers the cost.
I would like to see private funds used to develop schools and also the playgrounds; playgrounds like the once viable Aldus Tennis courts on Hoe Avenue . The city owns this Hoe Ave property which now is used by the pigeons who frolic there. Meanwhile, our students have lost an opportunity to learn tennis, compete on local and national levels, and win a scholarship to college.
I believe Mr. Bloomberg needs to sit down with educators and parents. Perhaps in that way, together, we can find the right way to invest in a human soul because the children are waiting.
Phyllis C.Murray
Chapter Leader
District 8 Region 2
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