Archives for category: Merit pay
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Attention, Roland Fryer, This May Be a Winner!

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2012 //
12

So we are having this “loss aversion” contest. The idea is that teachers will work hard to avoid loss than they will to win a bonus.

Roland Fryer and colleagues say that this works. Offer teachers a bonus at the beginning of the year and take it away if the scores don’t go up.

I thought we have a winner when a reader suggested taking away the teacher’s first born.

But that idea pales next to this one. This looks like a winner.

Don’t threaten the teacher. Threaten the kiddies!

What do you think?

This is for elementary students and would work particularly well when high stakes tests are pushed down to the K-3 grade band.

The mistake in the original plan is that it focuses on having teachers have to avoid loss. That’s simply one layer removed from the REAL target: the kiddoes being tested. After all, the threat of the teacher’s loss of $4000 means little or nothing to them.

So near the beginning of the school year, the teacher buys several lovable classroom pets. Perhaps a class bunny, kitty, and puppy would have maximum appeal, but the skillful teacher will be sure to find out in advance what animals are most beloved to the children s/he’ll be working with.

And then, after ample time has passed to ensure that every child is head-over-heels in love with at least one of the animals, signs go up over each pet’s enclosure that read, “If your test scores don’t go up, I’ll shoot this [puppy/kitty/bunny, respectively]. Love, Ms. Williams”

I’m confident that those students who don’t succumb to nervous breakdowns in short order will kick some serious high-stakes test bootay.

Categories Accountability, Merit pay, Testing

Loss Aversion Contest: First Dropout

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2012 //
0

This reader warns about the danger of the  loss aversion contest:

I would enter, but I’m worried someone would think it was a good idea and make it a law. At least in Louisiana……where I teach!

Supposing we agreed that teachers would produce higher test scores if we cut off their fingers or took their first-born?

How long would it be before a law was passed in Louisiana?

Keep it quiet.

Categories Merit pay

The First Entrant Is A Strong Contender

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2012 //
3

In the contest to see who can come up with the best form of loss aversion to motivate high test scores, we have a first entrant that looks incredibly strong.

Supposing you say to teachers, get those scores up or we take away your first born.

Don’t you think those scores are going up?

Supposing you said it to doctors?

They would all become dermatologists, and no one would be a surgeon.

What if you say it to economists?

You can bet all their predictions will be very safe.

Can you top this?

True, it didn’t work for pharaoh–the Hebrews packed up and moved out.

But hey, maybe it will work for teachers. Where can they go?

Categories Merit pay

The Loss Aversion Contest: You Can Win!

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2012 //
25

Economist Roland Fryer has been trying for years to find the magic incentive that would produce higher scores.

He tried merit pay, and that didn’t work.

He tried paying students to get higher scores, but that didn’t work.

Now, he has at last found the key:

He and his colleagues have perfected a technique called “loss aversion.”

They give teachers a bonus (say, $4,000) at the beginning of the year. If the scores go up, the teachers keep the money.

If the scores don’t go up, they lose the money!

That’s called “loss aversion.”

Barnett Berry thinks this is a stupid idea, but hey, it works. That’s good enough for Dylan Matthews writing on Ezra Klein’s blog at the Washington Post , who calls this study a success for merit pay. It is also good enough for the Broad Foundation, which funds Fryer’s quest for the golden test score.

What will people do to avoid a loss?

What if you tell teachers that you will cut off their fingers if the scores don’t go up?

What if you tell doctors that their pay will be cut whenever any of their patients die?

What if you say to economists that they lose their computers if their predictions don’t pay out?

What would you say to journalists to get them to produce better stories?

Here is the contest:

What is your best idea to raise the scores through “loss aversion”?

What is the very best threat you can think of to compel/frighten/intimidate/and/terrify teachers to make the students’ scores go up?

I will publish the responses of those who come up with the best ideas to improve American test-score productivity through “loss aversion.”

Is that enough of an incentive for you?

Categories Merit pay

What Is Legal Fraud?

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2012 //
5

A reader asks a reasonable question, perhaps wondering why states like Ohio and Pennsylvania continue to authorize cyber charters despite their abysmal results.

He brings up Michael Milken, who was convicted on charges of securities fraud and tax violation and sent to jail in 1990. According to his bio on Wikipedia, Milken made $1 billion a year and was paid out about $1.1 billion in fines and settlements of claims. One way to understand what is happening in education today is to read Connie Bruck’s book about Milken, the junk bond king, in Predator’s Ball. Junk bonds and leveraged buyouts led to lots of “creative destruction” of familiar brand names.

Today, Milken is a leading figure in the education reform movement.

He is one of the founders of the nation’s biggest cyber charter chain, K12. His foundation invests in merit pay (which as I have previously observed, never works); it gives awards annually to outstanding teachers. One does wonder if it is appropriate for an ex-felon to run schools that receive public funding. I don’t think he could work in a school because schools–at least, public schools– usually fingerprint future employees and don’t hire ex-cons. Cyber charters make a lot of money for their sponsors, but they provide a low-quality education, if you judge it by academic results.

I don’t understand the concept of “legal fraud”. Is that just reserved for corporations and some politicians?Re: CorporationsMilken owns K12 Inc and they are operating in 32 states + DC:http://www.k12.com/schools-programs/online-public-schoolsMilken is a convicted felon who admitted to and was imprisoned for fraud related to fiscal managment. Today, he typically says he’s just an investor in his companies and I believe he tries to conceal his real involvement in them by playing a kind of corporate musical chairs. At the very least, state government officials should be able to track and identify his true involvement in his companies and prevent those companies from receiving public funds on the basis of his felony convictions over money matters. I think it’s possible to do, because the feds prevented him from obtaining financial aid for a university he owned, since his felony convictions were related to violating US securities laws. Perhaps it’s because they were violations of federal laws and not state laws, but one would think the issue is more about fraud involving money, rather than jurisdiction.Re: Certain PoliticiansMy city’s former mayor of 22 years got our city into some truly terrible long-term contracts that privatized some public services, in order to cover fiscal deficits, including a 75 year parking-meter contract and a 99 year parking garage contract. Parking rates immediately skyrocketed and that is going to be lasting our ENTIRE lifetimes. This former mayor now works for the very law firm that negotiated that parking-meter deal:

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2012/05/daley-a-year-later-no-thanks-for-the-memories.html

I just don’t get why these kinds of things look like fraud and yet might be legal. Are there that many loopholes?

It’s particularly disconcerting when the politicians who do such things are attorneys who are familiar with the law –and the loopholes, too, I guess. This mayor was previously a State’s Attorney. Our last two governors, who were also lawyers, are currently serving time in prison for crimes they commited while in office.

One has to wonder why some people manage to avoid prosecution or sanctions while others don’t. Admittedly, I’m sometimes glad when little people, with little money and little crimes that don’t have victims are not targeted, but when we’re talking about big people, with big money and big crimes that impact millions of folks, not so much.
Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, For-Profit, Merit pay, On-Line Education

Merit Pay, the Undead Policy Idea

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2012 //
13

I just finished writing about the history of merit pay and I was struck by a simple fact: Merit pay has been tried again and again and again and again, and it died again and again and again and again.

Study after study says it made no difference.

Teachers don’t like it.

It doesn’t raise test scores.

But it never dies.

It is the Undead Policy Idea. It is the Dracula of American education.

Despite the absence of any evidence whatsoever, the U.S. Department of Education got Congress to authorize $1 billion for the Teacher Incentive Fund.

This is a total waste of money.

It should have been spent on early childhood education or pre-natal care for poor women. That would have done some good.

This teacher in Wisconsin has a fresh idea to wed merit pay and choice (I keep saying that the readers of this blog are brilliant):

Sounds like Bill Gates probably thinks highly of Merit Pay schemes. Unfortunately I think we are going to have to ride the storm out for a while in Wisconsin as Scott Walker has put things in place to “pay for performance” based on test scores. In the meantime I’ve been a tryin’ to beat them at their own game (which they don’t like btw). These “corporatizers” really like to sell the choice idea as we all know. I’m trying to get my State Rep. Samantha Kerkman (R), who voted along with the other republicans to end collective bargaining rights and for Scott Walker’s education reform bill, to introduce some choice to our education system if we end up going the merit pay route. I propose that schools in Wisconsin be mandated to provide a 2 tiered pay scale system; one based on merit pay tied to performance on mandated tests and one based on experience and education, you know the status quo way. The catch being that the merit pay system would be substantially higher,,,maybe 10,000 more than the status quo way. However, the status quo teachers would be free from all required standardized testing and would have minimal govt meddling. Of course teachers would be allowed to choose which tier they would like to “volunteer” for and parents would also get to choose which system to put their kids in. At the end of the day we would have choice, accountability, “rewarding” the best teachers by paying them more to raise test scores, etc. We would also know that the status quo teacher at least wasn’t greedy. I’m usually looked at like I’m from outer space when I bring it up. So, then I suggest another radical idea: If you can motivate teachers to teach “better” by rewarding them with more money when they improve test scores, then it would tend to reason that learners (students) would also be motivated by money. So, I ask “why not cut out the middle man”? Isn’t that another basic business model to save money? Why not just pay the kids to raise their test scores? Or perhaps we could combine the two ideas and make this a 3rd choice. Parents could choose from one of the three: 1. teachers compete for big money to raise test scores 2. Teachers get paid mediocre money but the kids compete for big money for raising their own scores 3. Teachers get paid low money but are freed from all testing and govt meddling is minimized. I know where my 5 year old is going; that’s for sure!
Categories Education Reform, Merit pay
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