School's In for Innovation?
So, merit pay for teachers doesn’t seem to be working in Chicago. Reminds me that paying students for good grades in New York City didn’t work either. However, who here took notice of recent studies done in Dallas and Washington? The Manhattan Institute’s Marcus Winters had an interesting take on this recently. An excerpt:
Rather than rewarding students for their learning outcomes, programs in these cities paid students for engaging in behaviors related to learning. Washington’s kids earned cash for attendance, good conduct, wearing their school uniforms, and doing their homework. Second-grade students in Dallas were offered $2 for every book that they could prove they read by passing a computer-based comprehensive quiz (there was a limit of 20 books per student).
Paying students to engage in constructive academic behavior proved remarkably effective. To put the results into context, paying students to read books had an impact on reading achievement equivalent to reducing class sizes by a third.
So how about this experiment? Don’t pay teachers for the test results of their students. Instead, pay them for “behaviors related to” teaching. Maybe a little extra for posting lesson plans and homework on a website each week, sending home individual feedback (including positive reports, not just warnings) to each family once a week, or holding set “office hours” before or after school? Then, track students' test results. I'd gamble on a statistical improvement.
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Re: School's In for Innovation?
Brilliant idea. Outcomes, after all, in education have a million-and-one variables. Teachers rightly respond, when the issue of paying for test results comes up, that they can't be held responsible for lousy parents or messed-up home lives. But paying them for "behaviors related to" makes sense to me.
Unrelated question, Ursula: if you suddenly won the lottery -- and I mean won it, big, wouldn't you want to start a school with some of the money? I know I would.
I often wonder why some of the super-rich -- guys like Gates and Buffett -- don't do that. Open a school or two in a place that really needs it. Concentrate on getting that right: really educate a thousand-or-so kids, then worry about saving the world.
Re: School's In for Innovation?
Absolutely, Rob. I've thought about opening a school without the mad cash (although I'm sure I'd need it if I got serious about it.) But who am I to think that I'd do it any better than Oprah in South Africa, or Andre Agassi in Las Vegas, or, for that matter, Madonna in Malawi? I guess these places are too new to assess. But can and will someone ever tell us if they are successful? Money and a genuine desire to fix the mess are necessary start-up tools, for sure, but don't seem to guarantee success. I'd probably trust Buffett to do it well if he took it on, but he's not. Gates dipped his toe into education, see http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/school-of-the-future's-1st-class-graduates, but it seems to have been a mixed bag for him, to say the least.
Re: School's In for Innovation?
I guess my problem with all of those grand projects is how grand they are. I'd just like to see one school -- just one -- somewhere in America, somewhere challenging, funded by one of those superrich dudes. If it works, then okay: now we know what works. If it doesn't, they're rich enough to keep trying.
If each billionaire in the United States paid for just one school, we'd have enough money for nine great schools in each state. Nine schools per state doesn't sound like much, but nine schools open for twelve years graduating, say, three hundred high school seniors per year is, by my rotten math, 32,400 lives permanently changed for the better. Which is a start.
Oh, and I'd be glad to forgive each and every billionaire's personal income tax bill for each year he or she is running a school.
They wouldn't -- they couldn't -- do worse.
Re: School's In for Innovation?
Rob Long: I guess my problem with all of those grand projects is how grand they are. I'd just like to see one school -- just one -- somewhere in America, somewhere challenging, funded by one of those superrich dudes. If it works, then okay: now we know what works. If it doesn't, they're rich enough to keep trying. Jun 7 at 8:50am
Rob, I don't think we need the superrich dudes, because the problem isn't a lack of money, it's a lack of management. We need more voters to listen to Senator Boxer's Democratic challenger Mickey Kaus, limit the power of the teachers' union and clear the way for more charter schools.
My business partner has been involved with this charter school for a decade now. Summit Prep graduates 100% of its students and is sending each one on to college. The school's population is disproportionately Hispanic, with many students from underprivileged backgrounds. It outperforms the district while spending 30% less than the other public schools. Naturally, the NEA-dominated local school board has been fighting tooth-and-nail to kill Summit rather than emulate it. Summit is winning nevertheless.
Re: School's In for Innovation?
George, I guess that's what I mean when I use the scientific term "superrich dudes" -- I mean someone with some kind of managerial and reputational stake in the success of a school.
It isn't money, of course, but it will require the kind of flexibility and go-to-hell attitude that money can buy, that superrich dudes bring to the table.
One of the things that has always kept vouchers and charter school initiatives from being enacted by voters has been their natural hesitancy about experimenting with their own kids. My guess is that parents would be a lot more confident about a school owned and managed by Bill Gates, or Warren Buffett, or Jack Welch, than by even the most accomplished charter school reformer.