Tuesday, February 08, 2011

How to buy better school performance with one simple tweak

I've read in a number of places that one approach to improving school performance is to offer money to schools who improve, or offer the most money to the schools who improve the most.

I'm not sure whether or not that approach would work, but here's a simple tweak to maximize its effectiveness: give some of that money to the students.

All students get some money. Students who pass get more money than students who fail. The highest-performing students get more money, but the most improved students also get more money. The highest-performing student in the school and the most-improved student in the school get exactly the same amount of money. Maybe the money baseline could increase with each grade, so that you'll never that less money than last year for getting exactly the same marks (i.e. if a D student pulls their average up to B in grade 10 and gets a shitload of money for improvement, we don't want them to get less money for maintaining a B in Grade 11.)

A school can only be successful if it elicits the desired behaviour in its students. School administrators and teachers already want the students to show the desired behaviour, if only because it makes life easier. If financial incentives are effective and appropriate (and I'm not sure whether or not they are), why not give at least part of them to the group that actually front-line produces the results being evaluated?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a great idea actually!
I have always hated math and never got very good grades in the subject until... I had a teacher in high school who used to give out candy when we would get good grades in her math class. Now just a piece of candy but like packages of it. I never had better math grades in my life then while in her class! If she had been giving out $20's I'm sure I could have become a straight A student!

laura k said...

I don't know why more teachers and schools don't realize that tangible, immediate rewards can improve learning. Delayed, abstract gratification is tough at any age, but for kids... it's a killer.

impudent strumpet said...

Actually, now that I think about it, the reason why I did actual work in the second half of high school and all of university was for money (in the form of scholarships). When I put no work in, I get B's. By putting work in, I get A's and scholarships. Basically I paid my university tuition by grade-grubbing. It's somehow considered respectable if you're already an A student, but do the same thing for C students and certain people will clutch their pearls and spout platitudes about the joy of learning.

laura k said...

Right! I did well in school for one reason: university was my ticket out of the house. I knew if I got into a "good" school, my father would pay for me to live away from home. If I didn't, I had no idea how I would ever get out. That was working for money, in a sense: tuition money.