Colorado SB 10-210: Teaching Students Bribery
Student looks over school "paycheck" with over $30 paid just for showing up.
Colorado’s lawmaker’s have discovered the latest, greatest, method for wasting education funds with Colorado Senate Bill 10-210. Not only are they proposing a one million dollar annually renewable program to give low-income students cash for reading, but it’s a bi-partisan education gimmack. Even Colorado’s conservative lawmaker Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry is co-sponsoring the bill with liberal Democratic Senator Chris Romer.
As the Colorado News Agency reports:
Dubbed “Earn to Learn,” the measure would give low-income kids a financial incentive to improve their reading skills by reading more outside the classroom.
The reading incentive program will be available for first- through fifth-graders whose school is within the boundaries of a promise zone—a federally designated area with higher-than-average rates of dropouts and at-risk kids. The reward for reading a book outside of class time will be $2 per book–if the child successfully completes a quiz on the book.
The program is designed to emulate a highly controversial program/study by Roland Fryer Jr., an economist at Harvard University. In this study covered by Time magazine, Roland chose 4 cities to test whether monetary incentives would promote better learning with each city having different monetary incentives.
The results of the experiments were inconclusive:
The results began to trickle into the lab last summer. In New York City, the $1.5 million paid to 8,320 kids for good test scores did not work — at least not in any way that’s easy to measure. In Chicago, under a different model, the kids who earned money for grades attended class more often and got better grades, two major accomplishments. Those students did not, however, do better on their standardized tests at the end of the year.
In Washington, the kids did better on standardized reading tests. Getting paid on a routine basis for a series of small accomplishments, including attendance and behavior, seemed to lead to more learning for those kids. And in Dallas, the experiment produced the most dramatic gains of all. Paying second-graders to read books significantly boosted their reading-comprehension scores on standardized tests at the end of the year — and those kids seemed to continue to do better the next year, even after the rewards stopped.
Senator Chris Romer apparently was impressed with these questionable results as reported by the Colorado News Agency:
Romer said that he has been following the work of Harvard economist Roland Fryer Jr., who tested and studied incentive programs for kids to close achievement gaps and found encouraging results pointing to successful outcomes. Romer wants to replicate that success here in Colorado. Romer said he called Fryer, and Fryer offered to help, if needed, to drum up support.
Minority Leader Josh Penry was quoted as saying:
“Market incentives work for big people and recent studies suggest that the same incentives will work for little people,” said Penry.
Ah yes, this is all for the little people. As Amanda Ripley of the Time article points out:
I have not met a child who does not admire this trend.
Now that’s some surprising information. You mean to say that all children like being paid to read? Amazing.
Penry and Romer must believe that rather than teaching children to learn for the sake of knowledge, we should indoctrinate our elementary kids with the idea that performing well in school means the student should be rewarded with cash.
Not surprisingly, some people (other than school children) are not impressed with this program:
The most damning criticism of Fryer came from psychologists like the University of Rochester’s Edward Deci, who has spent his career studying motivation. Deci has found that money — like other tangible rewards — does not work very well to motivate people over the long term, particularly for tasks that involve creativity. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that rewards can have the perverse effect of making people perform worse.
The program will be administered by the read-to-achieve board. According to SB 10-210:
The bill authorizes the read-to-achieve board to award up to $1,000,000 per year to organizations that operate promise neighborhoods or choice neighborhoods, as described in federal law, to fund programs that pay incentives to students to read books.
With all of Colorado’s perpetual budget problems you would think this kind of money could be used for something…let’s say, worthwhile. However, as the last section of SB 10-210 points out:
The general assembly hereby finds, determines, and declares that this act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety.
Does this mean if this bill isn’t passed Colorado’s public peace, health, and safety will be in jeopardy? Are Colorado’s ‘little people’ in danger? Quick, throw some cold, hard cash at ‘em.
Call or email Senator Chris Romer (303-656-9532) and Senator Josh Penry (303-866-3077) and let them know that Coloradans are not interested in starting yet another fantastical, cure-all, educational experiment using our children as their guinea pigs.
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