D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee will select the middle schools to participate in the pilot program (AP)
Michelle Rhee, superintendent of the Washington DC school system (with a total of three years of teaching under her belt) and now BFF of our own Joel Klein, has taken incentive pay to new and astonishing heights.
Liam Julian, in the Fordham Institute’s Education Gadfly this week, analyzes her latest incentive, and he is deeply skeptical. Rhee plans to pay some 3,000 middle school students $100 a month to attend class and do their homework.
The program is being overseen by Roland Fryer, the same Harvard wunderkind who is managing the program to pay students for test scores here in New York City schools.
“Is it a good idea?” Julian asks. “Yes, in a world in which schools are charged only with increasing their students’ test scores and nothing else; in which attaining that end justifies any means; and in which unintended consequences can be blithely ignored. But we do not occupy such a world.”
A little story from parentland: A friend whose daughter was a couch potato even as a very young child once took her on a little hike with several other parents and kids. The friend carried a giant bag of M&M’s. For every few steps this girl took along the trail, her mother rewarded her with another M&M. Needless to say, the day was not pleasant, nor did the child learn to enjoy hiking. The kids who weren’t getting M&Ms every third step were angry and upset, and the girl whined the whole way anyway. Incentives must reward something above and beyond, in this case, walking, or in the DC school case, showing up.
Someone needs to stand up to Michelle Rhee. She announced this plan unilaterally; she picks the schools; and the DC school system foots half the bill. (The other half is being picked up by Harvard). You can really appreciate our own pit bull with lipstick, Randi Weingarten, when you hear about Michelle Rhee’s autocratic and destructive reign over the DC school system.
Rhee claims school is like work and you must learn to show up. But school is not a job, as Julian says. Schools are not employers and students are not workers. “A school, unlike an employer, does not reap the services of its students–it provides services to them,” he writes. Attendance is compulsory, and paying students to show up could have the perverse effect of making the standards seem arbitrary. The student “learns the false lesson that punctuality and conscientiousness are extraordinary and noteworthy,” Julian notes.
In October, New York will learn if paying students to get good grades had any effect. A similar experiment recently–paying students in six states (including New York City) to score well on Advanced Placement exams, actually resulted in declining scores.
So what? says Fryer. “I actually don’t care if incentives are the answer; I just care about getting an answer,” he told the New York Times August 19. “If incentives aren’t the answer, I guarantee you I will drop them like a bad habit.”
That may be good social science, but it’s bad education. These are students, not lab rats, and if incentives don’t work the result is not “null” but possibly actual damage. Why condition children to barter M&Ms or cash for becoming socialized and educated? Paying students to show up, or paying them for grades, fails one huge test: it fails to teach the true value of education.
Tagged: AP, Michelle Rhee, Washington DC
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8 Comments:
1 RSchwaber
· Sep 5, 2008 at 4:57 pm
It does not go far enough. If Ms Rhee really wants students to show up, do homework and behave, she should offer $3000 a month. I guarantee you, the parents of these children will make them become model students and citizens
2 Educating the next generation of crony capitalists « D2 route
· Sep 5, 2008 at 5:20 pm
[...] culture of corruption , hubris , public education Tags: DCPS, Harvard, Michelle, Michelle Rhee Paying Kids To Show Up — Rheelly Dumb Someone needs to stand up to Michelle Rhee. She announced this plan unilaterally; she picks the [...]
3 nmorse
· Sep 7, 2008 at 3:29 pm
This is absolutly ridiculous. Nobody should be paying kids to go to school, do the work, and behave. If the children are being paid then it needs to be more than $100 to get them to do anything. $100 a month will not most kids to go to school and do work if they don’t want to go. The parents of the child is the one that needs to be motivating them.
4 bfeldman
· Sep 9, 2008 at 1:29 pm
With the previous administration complete failure to educate even half the students, I’d say let Ms. Rhee run her experiments. Maybe they will work!
More of my thoughts at my blog:
BarbaraFeldman.com
5 Quixotic Pedagogue » Blog Archive » Signs of the Educational Apocalypse
· Nov 28, 2008 at 2:29 am
[...] that students don’t seem to be able to get their homework done or come to school?Pay them $100/mo for doing it! For years, school officials have used detention, remedial classes, summer school and suspensions [...]
6 Redcatcher
· Dec 1, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Instead of paying them to come to school, she should pay them to stay home. This way the kids who do attend will get a proper education and the teaching staff will not have to deal with the miscreants.
7 johnnymo0829
· Dec 2, 2008 at 9:16 am
I don’t like the idea of paying a student to go to school or do their work. If there is any kind of a reward for this then it should come from the home where the student is rewarded by their parents. The student should be taught from an early age that going to school and performing well will have its own rewards. The schools can use the money being used to encourage students to attend to actually improve the buildings or programs offered at the schools. Schools use a tremendous amount of money for purposes other than teaching students; this seems to be just another example of this.
Paying students to attend school actually starts a very slippery slope argument for many students in the schools where this reward is given. Johnny Jones got a payment for showing up the minimum days needed to for it, but Sally has perfect attendance and has never missed a homework assignment, should we double her payment? What incentive to do excellent work is there for a student? If a student is given $100.00 in the fourth grade, do we need to give raises for them as they get older? This is a lot of money for a nine year old, but at sixteen we need to do more than that, they can skip school for a minimum wage job and make more money. Do we base promotions and raises on work output of a student? This program looks to reward the students who want to do little or no work while it is just giving money to students who would attend school anyway. The eventual pay off should be taught to the student from the beginning of their lives and it needs to be taught first and foremost by the parents, you have to go to school, you will do well so you can get a good job. There should not be a reward for doing the minimum expected of you.
Setting a student up with the false pretence that they will be rewarded for doing just the minimum needed to get by does nothing for the long term learning and development of a student. The reason that students go to school in a large part is to prepare them for the real world and how to function in the workplace. You can go to work and do just the minimum required of you, but will you ever be promoted? Will you ever get a raise? Will your job ever be fulfilling to you? Do the schools then begin to give similar rewards for all behavior? Good job you graduated, here is thirty thousand dollars, you didn’t bring a weapon to school, here is a three hundred dollar payment you got a 1200 on your s.a.t.’s … have a new car.
If there is any kind of payment that would be made then perhaps it should be more of an endgame payment plan. You had a good record of attendance and always did well in school, at the end of high school you have a built in scholarship program for the state run public college system. This will encourage students to work for long term goals.
8 Katboogie
· Dec 4, 2008 at 2:39 am
We ALL do those things which we believe will produce rewarding results. Is there ANY young person who is completing their high school education without any sense that there are societal “rewards” for their determination? Is being recognized as an “Honor Roll” student a “reward?” How about the receipt of scholarships? Could that be seen as a “reward?” How about increasing the likelihood of becoming financially independent? Could that be a “reward?” It looks to me like rewards MUST be attached to motivate students to achieve any level of academic success. A student, who can see no reward in sight to continue even a basic high school education, is a student who has given up. A student, who gives up on our education system, has few options in today’s work force. The likelihood that they will be able to produce an above-poverty level lifestyle for themselves and their children is very limited. Chances are, their children won’t come to school prepared to succeed either. Nor is it likely that these under-educated parents are able to support their children with homework help. However, I do not think all students should be paid to attend school. Those “at risk” students could potentially learn something from being paid. Usually, when I “give up” it is because I feel overwhelmed and I just can’t do everything on my own. I think a lot of the times; this may be what is happening to “drop-outs”. They might go strait to working at a fast food restaurant or factory because this gives instant return. For students who live in poverty, or difficult home environments, a job gives them two things: 1) Financial Security, because making money means that they can buy groceries, or hygiene products, or even clothing, that will allow them to live more normally in society; and 2) A sense of Survival that is only maintained if they attend to work. With this said, a “drop-out” is not completely giving up. They leave school for something that seems more appropriate for them in the given situation. If dropping out is a concern, a logical solution would be to provide to the “drop-outs” with what seems attractive about the working world. Most likely, this is money. In the working world, cash-flow exists. UNFORTUNATELY, education gives up on students, where they could be playing a supportive role in helping students’ complete high school so that the “working world” has more options. I feel that paying the “at risk” and drop-out students will increase school attendance and participation, and in the long-term, reduce chronic dependence upon government aid for basic survival, because graduates will have more options available in the workplace and in post-secondary education. But, that’s just my opinion.
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