Performance pay, incentive programs moving into phase two

Posted by Philissa at 3:59 PM

The DOE proudly announced earlier this week that 86 percent of the schools given the option of accepting performance pay this year chose to. Thirty-four eligible schools chose not to participate. (The percentage would have been slightly lower had the DOE not included the additional schools it apparently solicited once it became clear that a chunk of schools would abstain from the program.)

By the end of the day tomorrow, each of the schools will have to decide, by committee, whether their merit pay will be shared equally among all teachers or given in varying amounts to teachers who especially deserve it. I'm curious whether any schools will choose this latter option, and if they do, whether their choice will reflect an honest attempt to see the effect of merit pay or cronyism, as Norm Scott at EdNotes Online speculates will happen.

Interestingly, a slightly higher percentage of "A" and "D" schools than "B" and "C" schools given the option to participate chose not to. But of the 19 schools with F's on their progress reports, not a single one opted out of the performance pay pilot. I'm not sure what, if anything, to make of this -- I'm open to suggestions.

In other incentives news, we also learned this week that the city has distributed $740,000 so far through the Opportunity NYC program, although we don't know how much money was distributed because of kids' achievements in school.

With text message plan, DOE reforms officially absurd

Posted by Philissa at 6:25 AM

Is there any idea that wild and crazy Roland Fryer won't try? Last week the word was that he was arranging to give kids cell phones whose minutes would be dependent on school performance. This week's plan, according to the Times, is to have famous people, such as Jay-Z and LeBron James, send poor New York City kids text messages telling them to stay in school. Really. Because a rap artist who dropped out of high school and a basketball player who skipped college for a multi-million-dollar professional contract are the perfect figures to teach kids about the long-term benefits of doing well in school.

Even getting past the obvious ironies, this plan just seems weird. I have questions about why the program will roll out in KIPP charter schools, where students already have someone at home who recognizes the value of doing well in school enough to enter them in the lottery and make sure they are in uniform for each 9-hour day. And I'm not sure Fryer needed a focus group to find out that "reaching [teenagers] through a concerted campaign of text messages or through the Internet was far more likely to be effective than a traditional billboard and television campaign" — any parent or 9-year-old could have told him that. Finally, I wonder whether it's crossed Fryer's mind that one way to increase "demand" for education would be to make school enjoyable — by bolstering the quality of teaching, reducing the number of tests kids must take, and encouraging creativity in the classroom.

I don't think there's anything wrong, necessarily, with what's essentially a 21st-century version of this 1990 public service announcement. I just don't get it.

The text messages will start transmitting in January. I can already imagine one unintended consequence that could be a boon for DOE officials and cash-strapped parents. If their cell phones start spewing motivational messages, many kids might feel incentivized to leave their phones at home.

Cash-for-kids plan starting to pay out

Posted by Philissa at 7:21 AM

In the midst of all of the report card madness, the Post remembered to catch up with some of the children receiving payments for their performance in school as part of the DOE's new incentives initiative. The kids at MS 302 (percent of kids on grade level: 22; progress report grade: B) say they're studying more and excited about school because of the money. "I was thinking if I studied more, I'd get all the answers right, and I'd probably get more money," one girl told the Post.

I wouldn't go so far as anti-testing activist Jane Hirschmann, who told the Post that the payment plan is "about the worst thing I've ever had," but I do think the crude idea sounds even cruder from the mouths of children whose schools have obviously given up on teaching them to appreciate learning and studying for their own merits. At least there are "several students" who told the Post they have always worked hard and will continue doing so. It's just too bad they are buried at the end of the article when the Post might have put into public record what motivated students think kids need to want to succeed.

Opportunity NYC paying some parents to meet with teachers

Posted by Philissa at 7:09 AM

With new incentive programs being announced what seems like every other day, it's easy to forget where the city's presentation of financial incentives for good behavior began — way back in June, with the announcement of the Opportunity NYC program. The program, which offers cash incentives not just to poor students but to their families as well, has gotten quietly underway this fall; according to a DOE memo, the program apparently is being administered in "bi-monthly periods" and the first one comes to a close at the end of the month. Before then, parents will have a chance to earn $25 for every parent-teacher conference they attend. (Check out the Insideschools calendar for conference dates.) Principals have been instructed to tell their teachers to sign forms documenting parents' attendance. This is the first I've heard about the actual mechanics of the program — has anyone come across any other information?

Student Thought: Special College Edition (The Posse Scholarship and Cash-For-Kids AP Style)

Posted by Seth Pearce at 1:53 PM

Today, I stayed home sick (somehow my back went out yesterday after a long School Leadership Team meeting), so I figured I'd be productive and write a post. A few days ago, I sent out my first college application so I am a little "college-on-the-brain"ed. It looks like other people are too.

In September, Deborah Bial, the founder of the Posse Foundation, won a MacArthur "genius grant" of $500,000. I have a lot of friends who are currently going through the Posse process and they are really working hard so that if they win they could end up at the one of the great schools that Posse is connected to. Posse is a pretty innovative way to encourage students from NYC to go to and succeed in college. Its strategy is sending students in groups, or posses, of about ten students to one college where they would be more comfortable and eager to continue because they come into the school with a built-in posse.

Another interesting strategy for getting kids to go to and succeed in college was announced last week.

Though controversial, the plan would give students up to $1,000 for scoring well on an Advanced Placement exam. As some of you may remember, my fellow students and I were a bit uncomfortable with Opportunity NYC; however, I'm kind of into this new plan.

Studies have shown that students who take AP courses are more likely to succeed in college. Then, you ask, why doesn't every student take AP courses? In my experience students refrain from taking AP courses for several reasons:

1) Their school doesn't offer the AP course they're interested in.
2) They have a time-consuming job and can't bear the extra work.
3) They don't see college as a real option.

Seems to me that this program could alleviate those problems. It could encourage schools to offer more AP courses through the extra funding they'd receive. It could make taking an AP course more accessible for students who need the money. And it could encourage more students to pursue a college education, now that they have some idea of what a college course looks like.

The reason I prefer this program to Opportunity NYC is that this uses the cash-for-kids formula to promote the idea of going to college and to give students the abilities to succeed. Even though both problems draw similar criticisms, I feel that Opportunity NYC was more of an end in itself and didn't work to promote future plans so much.

Do I contradict myself? Just a little? Okay then, I contradict myself. This is the New York City public school system. There's a lot going on.

Incentives may be a misnomer in DOE's cash-for-AP scores experiment

Posted by Philissa at 4:39 PM

At this point, you've probably heard that the DOE is rolling out a new program, titled Reach NYC, to reward high-achieving high school students with cash for passing scores on Advanced Placement exams -- ranging from $500 to a just-passing score to $1,000 for a perfect one. The program is privately funded, thanks to the work of reformer Whitney Tilson, who blogged about the launch, and will start this year in 25 public and six private schools in the city. In addition to the student rewards, schools -- and possibly principals -- with large numbers of students who pass AP exams will get cash of their own. This program is similar but not related to the DOE's Opportunity NYC program, which will pay younger kids in needy schools smaller amounts for their academic performance and behavior.

I happen to believe that kids shouldn't get cash rewards for success in school. I especially think that in this case, because passing scores on AP exams can translate into college credits, which can net kids savings in excess of $1,000 an exam. But I can also see potential policy benefits in finding out whether financial incentives improve student performance. The original cash-for-kids plan is troubling but could yield meaningful information. I don't see how the AP initiative could possibly do that because as far as I can tell, the "incentives" will be operating on kids who are already successful.

The new program was announced at the selective Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem, where students will be eligible for the money. FDA has about 1,500 students in grades 6-12. Divided evenly, that would mean there are about 215 kids in each grade. AP courses are most typically offered to 11th and 12th graders; only a very few schools nationwide allow students younger than that to take AP courses except in exceptional circumstances. So we know that about half of all students in 11th and 12th grade are taking AP courses at FDA. How does this rate of AP enrollment stack up?

Jay Mathews of the Washington Post has been monitoring AP nationwide for years, using test-taking rates to compile a "Challenge Index" of the nation's high schools. Any school where students take at least one test per graduating senior makes the list; Mathews says only five percent of all high schools qualify. So even if each kid taking AP courses at FDA is taking only one, the school would rank at the low end of the top 5 percent of all schools nationwide, according to Mathews' index. And 80 percent of FDA's test-takers pass their exams, a more-than-respectable rate at any school. (Those are just the numbers in the New York Times article; the Daily News's coverage makes it sound like 350 kids are currently taking AP classes.) Sure, FDA can do better, but in a city where, according to the Times, only 1 percent of black students pass an AP exam, are its kids the ones who need incentives?

Roland Fryer, the DOE's Chief Equality Officer, is absent from the coverage of this new initiative. I wonder if he is involved in it at all. With a Harvard economist on the DOE's payroll, I would hope for more rigorous experimental conditions for an expensive project like this one. Or else the DOE and the private groups distributing money to its students should stop calling cash payments "incentives" and call them what they really are -- salaries for kids.

Student Thought: So, what do STUDENTS think about "Cash for Kids"?

Posted by Seth Pearce at 8:28 PM

It's been months since the Bloomberg-Klein Complex introduced Opportunity NYC, a program that would pay students for academic achievement, specifically: standardized test scores. This story has been covered by all the major media outlets, the vast sea of NYC edublogs and even the Colbert Report. Still, no one has asked: "What do real life students think about 'Cash for Kids'?" At Monday's NYC Student Union meeting, students voted unanimously in disapproval of the program. Here are some student opinions from the press release:

"It insults hard-working, low- income students by conveying the message that they could not possibly value education in itself and must need some sort of incentive in order to perform better in school." -- Laura Johnson, 17

"A student that tries to earn the money but barely misses the cut off score to earn the money will only become frustrated and give up." -- Hasanur Rahman, 16

"[Opportunity NYC] propagates the test prep culture and detracts from other important aspects of education." -- Shauna Fitzgerald, 15

"The cash being used in this program could better be used to solve citywide problems affecting all students like class size and school resources." -- Ben Shanahan, 15

I tend to trust the opinion of my peers and was one of the students who eventually voted for the resolution disapproving of the program. Still, I personally believe there might be some benefits to the program:

• As my friend and fellow Student Union member Ashu Kapoor said: “It's nice to know that the city is coming up with new and creative ways to help New York City public school students.”
• A lot of students just don't care about school and this might encourage them to get involved in school. (However, as other students at the meeting noted, that involvement would be temporary and wouldn't bring the longterm results that we need.)
• It just might work.

Unfortunately, "it just might work" is not a good enough rationale for a program on this grand a scale. The DOE needs to come up with incentives for students to get into their education but this program has too many holes in it. Maybe instead of Cash for Kids, the DOE could add money to a college fund to be managed by the city and given to these students once their high achievements have made the dream of a college education more realizable. That would turn this short-term program into one capable of longterm successes.

Check out two great posts on the issue by NYC Student Union members Ben Shanahan and Hasanur Rahman over at the NYC Students Blog.

Cash for kids rehash

Posted by Philissa at 6:45 AM

Joseph Berger, in today's "On Education" column, discusses the pros and cons of DOE Chief Equality Officer Roland Fryer's plan to pay pay some kids for their performance in school. Berger found parents to mostly rehash familiar arguments about the plan, but he also talked to Manhattan Institute scholar Sol Stern, who suggested an alternative that makes a lot of sense to me: putting the earnings not into kids' hands but into college funds they can access when they graduate from high school.

I can't imagine a few hundred dollars a year, spent immediately on games and play items, making a sustained difference in a child's will to learn, but having a couple thousand dollars in a bank account could make all the difference in the world to a motivated kid for whom college might feel out of reach financially. And this alternative plan would signal that the DOE is concerned with the long-term growth and success of its students, not just the annual testing and attendance bottom line.

Commentary on the cash-for-kids plan

Posted by Philissa at 10:41 AM

Since the DOE announced last month its plan to pay some students for their performance on tests, the education world has been abuzz with commentary on the program. Here's a roundup of the dialogue.

Today in the Times, Barry Schwartz, a psychology professor at Swarthmore College, says decades of psychology research suggest the plan could backfire. He writes:

Assumptions that economists make about human motivation, though intuitive and straightforward, are false. In particular, the idea that adding motives always helps is false. There are circumstances in which adding an incentive competes with other motives and diminishes their impact. Psychologists have known this for more than 30 years.

Less demurely, historian Diane Ravitch lambasted the plan in the Huffington Post shortly after it was announced, calling it "anti-democratic, anti-civic, anti-intellectual, and anti-social."

The plan to pay kids has also found a host of defenders. In the comments on Ravitch's piece, for example, one person wrote: "I think I know a lot more about poor people and kids than you do and you are WRONG. This plan sends exactly the right message: good grades are valuable."

And the Staten Island Advance took a look at a similar program in a small town in Ohio and reported that school officials there had seen some signs of success. Those officials also told the Advance that the program had been well received because they had consulted with community members for months before launching the program.

Cash for kids guru in at the DOE

Posted by Philissa at 4:40 PM

The DOE confirmed in a press release yesterday an interesting tidbit the Times reported the day before and then fleshed out in a profile: Roland Fryer, the man behind the plan to pay some kids for their academic performance, has been hired by the DOE as its "Chief Equality Officer," a title that doesn't appear to have been granted to anyone anywhere before. The position will have wide-ranging responsibilities, according to the press release, ranging from reviewing enrollment and choice procedures, to analyzing the DOE's capital resources, to monitoring principal and teacher recruitment and training. Fryer will donate his services to the DOE next year while he divides his time between Harvard and New York; in the fall of 2008, he will join the DOE full-time at a salary of more than $150,000.

Coming soon: cash for successful students

Posted by Philissa at 11:18 PM

In Ben's last post, he took a look at merit pay for teachers. Now, New York City is going to pioneer offering merit pay for students — offering kids cash prizes for academic achievement.

Last week, when the first rumors of the mayor's plan to introduce monetary "incentives" for strong school performance hit the newspapers, I hoped they would prove to be just rumors. But today the city announced a pilot version of the incentive program, in which families will receive cold, hard cash for getting kids to school, showing up at parent-teacher conferences, and applying for a library card. At the high school level, it looks like the money will go straight to teenagers who take the PSAT and Regents exams and who make progress toward graduating. The incentive schedule includes a $400 graduation bonus.

This program is just one of three privately funded initiatives that make up what the city is calling "Opportunity NYC" and billing as "the nation's first conditional cash transfer program." In addition to paying for school performance, Opportunity NYC includes financial incentives for adults who maintain health insurance and who hold down a job or enroll in a job training program. All of the programs will be launched this fall on a pilot basis — the education program will be open only to families living in one of six neighborhoods whose income is below 130 percent of the poverty level and who have at least one child in grade 4, 7, or 9. Schools can also volunteer to participate in a trial of a program that will pay students for high scores on the interim assessments that all schools are supposed to give next year.

These programs represent a major achievement for Roland Fryer, the Harvard economics professor who has spent his career (short so far; he is just 30 years old) investigating whether incentives can convince people to change their environment. A fascinating 2005 New York Times Magazine cover story about Fryer suggested that DOE officials were already interested in his plan, but that he was having a hard time selling it to principals, who worried that paying kids for test scores would send the message that learning itself is an insufficient incentive. Last month, Fryer pitched his plan in a letter to principals of empowerment schools. I'm curious what has changed to get principals on board now.

While I'm always eager to hear about innovative strategies to motivate students and their families, the notion of exchanging cash for school performance just doesn't sit right with me. I wonder whether the incentives are large enough to persuade people to improve their behavior, or whether some families will just be rewarded for what they are already doing well. I also wonder, as others have, whether cash incentives will make tests even more stressful for kids than they already are. These are probably questions that Roland Fryer is eager to answer — I just wish it weren't the city's kids and their families who have to be his test subjects.