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9486 in the collection
New Effort Aims to Test Theories of Education
Ohanian Comment: Eli Broad needs no introduction. Enter his name in a search on this site and you will get plenty.
Here is some info on what Fryer is doing--and why it is wrong.
Professor Roland G. Fryer Jr., argues that some children, especially those from impoverished backgrounds, lack the foresight and role models to be self-motivated. So he advocates that schools use money as a motivator. So children are paid for doing well on tests that promote a curriculum of test prep, a dead end. Some of us tired, old teachers remember a time and place when students were motivated by the curriculum. But where's the capitalist with deep pockets who will fund a major overhaul of our antiquated curriculum?
Now about this claim Fryer makes that "pharmaceutical companies have poured billions of dollars each year into studying new drugs," as it happens I am reading Our Daily Meds by former New York Times reporter Melody Petersen. One is always standing on very shaky ground when attempting to make parallels between medicine and schools, but this books details how comparison with pharmaceutical companies offers nothing but quicksand. It is a truly shocking expose of how pharmaceutical companies really spend their money. For starters, By 2005, Pfizer was spending $2.28 on marketing and administrative costs for every $1 it spent on scientific research. But even those numbers, taken from its financial statements, may understate the company's true marketing cots. That's because at Pfizer, promotion began in the lab. . . . Marketing infused every aspect of a drug's development at Pfizer, according to the company's exectutives.
And it gets worse. The book will make you doubt every pill you take.
When Fryer's incentive plan was introduced in New York City, GBN News offered this memo from Chancellor Joel Klein at New York City Public School Parents.
Memo to all NY City School Principals: From Chancellor Joel Klein
GBN News has obtained a draft memo from Chancellor Klein, detailing a new Department of Education initiative which appears to be part of Mayor Bloomberg's plan to improve achievement through financial incentives. The text of the memo follows:
I am pleased to announce to you a new financial incentive program for children and parents. We expect that this program will substantially improve students’ academic performance by providing financial rewards for behaviors and achievements which further children’s learning and parental involvement in their education. Please bear in mind that the expenses incurred from this program will be charged to your school’s budget. But the test results will be well worth it! And you will then be able to offset the costs by cutting teaching positions. After all, with incentives like these, larger classes will be no deterrent to learning.
Effective immediately, each school will provide the following cash incentives for the behaviors and achievements listed below:
•Take interim assessment: $5
•Achieve perfect score on interim assessment: $50
•Use #2 pencil: $2.50 per exam
•Attend test prep class: $25
•Get library card: $25
•Register with DOE website: $25
•Demonstrate ability to make sense of DOE website: $50
•Attend parent teacher conference:
Elementary School: $50
Middle School/High School: $10 per subject teacher
•Attend PTA meeting: $25 plus cake and coffee
•Use Metro Card instead of school bus:
Child over 10 years old: $50
Child under 10 years old: $100
•Turn in cell phone: $100 ($200 for a two year plan)
•Conform to school’s dress code (or wear school uniform, where applicable): $1 per day
•Spell name correctly: $.15 per occurrence
•Raise hand in class: $.10 per occurrence
•Raise hand in class for reason other than going to the bathroom: $.25 per occurrence
•Homework completed on time: $1 per occurrence, up to a maximum of $20 per month
•Neatness: Counts, but no reward (unfunded mandate)
•Write letter to NY Times, Daily News, or the Post praising "Children First" reforms: $500
As you can see, parents and children together can earn thousands of dollars through this incentive program (more by giving up a two year cell phone plan). They can get a taste of the way it is to be rich like the Mayor and myself. And if that’s not an incentive to love learning, I don’t know what is!
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
Roland G. Fryer Jr., a Harvard economist, has often complained that while pharmaceutical companies have poured billions of dollars each year into studying new drugs and Boeing devoted $3 billion to develop the 777 jet, there has been little spent on efforts to scientifically test educational theories.
Now Dr. Fryer has quit his part-time post as chief equality officer of the New York City public schools to lead a $44 million effort, called the Educational Innovation Laboratory, to bring the rigor of research and development to education. The initiative will team economists, marketers and others interested in turning around struggling schools with educators in New York, Washington and Chicago.
Backed by the Broad Foundation, founded by the billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, and other private groups, the research is intended to infuse education with the data-driven approach that is common in science and business, Dr. Fryer said. He compared the current methods of educational research to the prescriptions of an ineffective doctor.
“If the doctor said to you, ‘You have a cold; here are three pills my buddy in Charlotte uses and he says they work,’ you would run out and find another doctor,” Dr. Fryer said. “Somehow, in education, that approach is O.K.”
In its first year, the research group plans to focus on incentive programs, including controversial ideas like giving students cash for good test scores, an approach that Dr. Fryer has tested in New York since June 2007.
Each of the three school districts working with the institute will use a different plan to encourage high achievement, with researchers tracking the effect of each on student performance.
New York schools plan to continue Dr. Fryer’s experiment of paying students in the fourth and seventh grades up to $500 a year for doing well on reading and math tests. A separate Fryer initiative, which rewarded 3,000 New York middle school students with cellphone minutes for academic performance and classroom behavior, was discontinued because the city did not raise enough money from private donors to pay for it this fall.
Conclusive evidence about the effectiveness of such programs has been scant, and Dr. Fryer said officials are still examining the data on last year’s cash incentives. He said he hoped that the cellphone idea would gain traction in other cities.
Dr. Fryer said the new institute would be able to identify what works so that educators across the country could prioritize their spending.
“We will have the willingness to try new things and be wrong — the type of humbleness to say, ‘I have no idea whether this will work, but I’m going to try,’ ” he said.
The Broad Foundation, based in Los Angeles, has pledged $6 million to fund the institute for three years, and the school districts are expected to front half the cost of any projects they launch with the Education Innovation Laboratory. Organizers are seeking other foundation grants to cover additional costs.
Mr. Broad has been a generous and aggressive advocate of education issues, with mixed results. He has invested in charter schools, run training programs for urban school leaders, and he finances a prize that awards districts for narrowing the achievement gap among income and ethnic groups.
Mr. Broad’s collaboration with Dr. Fryer, 31, began on Christmas Eve when Mr. Broad called Dr. Fryer to congratulate him on earning tenure from Harvard, the youngest black professor to do so.
Mr. Broad asked Dr. Fryer to come up with “the next big idea” in education, and Dr. Fryer began consulting with companies that market to younger people. By summer, the idea for the Education Innovation Laboratory had been hatched.
“We’re looking for people that want to run an urban district that is not satisfied with the status quo, that recognizes that you need reform, you need change,” Mr. Broad said, “and recognizes how far America has fallen behind other nations in public education.”
— Javier C. Hernandez
New York Times
2008-09-25
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/education/25educ.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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