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December 3, 2008
On “Colbert Report,” cash-for-grades guru hedges his bets
I’ve been taking my head cold to bed long before Stephen Colbert’s Comedy Central show goes on the air, so I was glad to see that Alexander Russo posted about Tuesday night’s featured guest, Roland Fryer. Fryer is of course the Harvard professor who last year became the city Department of Education’s first-ever chief equality officer. His research tests whether cash payments can make students more motivated. This year, Fryer’s cash-for-kids experiment expanded from New York to schools in Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Watch the full segment to see Colbert ask — and answer — hard questions like this one:
If Danny gives Johnny $10 to copy his homework, then the teacher gives Danny $50 for turning in his homework for an A, how much money does Danny have left to give Johnny for tomorrow’s homework?
The answer is: Danny has no idea, because it was his math homework.
Also worth noting: During his interview, Fryer doesn’t claim that paying kids for good grades is a sure bet. When Colbert asks if the program is working, Fryer says, “We don’t know yet.” And he says he’ll scale the experiment up to more cities next year — but only “if it works. … If it doesn’t, we’ll try the next innovation next year.”
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December 3rd, 2008 4:21 pm
Nevertheless, how can we trust him? It shouldn’t be up to Fryer to evaluate the results of his own experiment. This fact that he is allowed to do so violates standard academic practices. That this administration is letting him get away with this shows a disregard for value of objectivity. Bring on the spinmeisters!
Moreover, he is engaging in large-scale experiments on vulnerable, low-income students. Half the middle school students in DC are involved in this “experiment.”
Given the predominantly negative evidence on the results of such studies, which suggest that these sort of monetary incentives lead to a long-term decline in intrinsic motivation, this should not have been allowed Both Rhee and Klein should be ashamed of themselves.
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December 3rd, 2008 5:45 pm
How about we mix immediate gratification with intrinsic rewards by creating the academic version of a 401(k)? Allow the beneficiaries of Fryer’s plan to earn dollars that can be paid out only upon graduating from high school. The more they earn, the less likely they are to walk away from a big payout in the end.
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December 3rd, 2008 8:57 pm
I tend to agree with Robert’s ideas- if we are going to give these kids and their parents any sort of money, it should go into an account like a 529, only to be used for higher education. What better way for them to see that there will be a payoff? These kids need to see that education is an investment they make in themselves, and getting money to use for higher education, whether it’s a 4 year college, a 2 year or a trade school, will show them that value of continuing to invest in themselves. As poor as my students are, many of them seem to have iPods and cell phones- do they need more gadgets and sneakers?
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December 3rd, 2008 10:05 pm
I actually talked to a friend whose sister is getting money or minutes or something and he said that it has really motivated her academically. Just an anecdote. But still something.
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December 3rd, 2008 11:38 pm
No one will argue that in the short-term, incentives work. Any teacher who has ever promised extra recess for 20 minutes of silent reading will attest to that. But if the kids don’t see education as a means to an end the gains are ephemeral and the long term payoff (sorry, but even a little boost on a standardized reading test doesn’t impress me) will be nil.
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December 4th, 2008 9:42 am
Philissa, I think your headline is misleading. Roland has said repeatedly that he doesn’t know whether the cash programs will succeed and if the data showed they didn’t he would move on to something else that might. The NYTimes and others have quoted him to this end on several occasions. He’s not now backing off or looking for wiggle room. You could call it rigor.
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December 4th, 2008 1:21 pm
To Robert - I believe the Chicago program does something along the lines of what you propose. Half the money is earned immediately. Half is earned only when students obtain their diploma (though it doesn’t have to be used for college). The idea is to provide both an immediate reward and a long-term incentive. I think the whole point is to see whether this type of program will make the value of an education REAL to kids who might not see that in their immediate family/community. And it also levels the playing field when you consider that middle class families provide these kind of rewards all the time. As for anecdotes, my friend is AP at a school that is participating in the New York program and one interesting thing she told me is that the program really boosted parent involvement in the school (which has always been a serious challenge for them). She said about half the kids are saving most of their money for college and many parents who had never set up college accounts for their kids are now matching the rewards the kids earn on the tests. I thought that was pretty cool.
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December 18th, 2008 1:07 pm
It seems wrong to use these kids as guinea pigs for an experiment when there’s already tons of gold-standard research on motivating kids to learn (as outlined in my books, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning, and Pressured Parents, Stressed-out Kids.)
Here’s the URL to an oped that deals specifically with the research on paying kids to learn: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-grolnick5-2008sep05,0,2652576.story
Instead of pouring millions of dollars into paying kids for grades, it would be better to pour millions into training teachers to build kids’ inner motivation to learn, which will last them through college and life. Or pour it into early childhood education, which solid research has shown has a lasting effect on kids’ ability to learn as they grow older.
Money will stimulate kids to study at first, as others have pointed out, but the motivation doesn’t last.
Kathy Seal
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January 22nd, 2010 4:15 am
Really great post/article really informative.
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