A Modest Proposal For Merit Pay

Let's all stipulate that all adults want students to succeed.  Let's further stipulate that all students want to succeed.  Some students may not have discovered that fact; some students may not know how to succeed, but all want to.

For purposes of argument, let's all agree that money does motivate all people to succeed.  I don't agree, but the Governor takes it as a matter of faith.

Let's also stipulate that one should apply stimulus as close as possible to the thing one wants to stimulate.  That's why those who want people to type faster pay more to the keyboardist who hits the most correct keystrokes. They don't pay the bonus to the floor manager who walks around making sure no one spills coffee on the keyboard.

I'm assuming that principle explains why the Governor has not proposed merit pay for administrators and counselors.  Teachers are closer to students.  He may wish to gain revenue from reality TV show featuring principals wrestling, but I digress

There is, however, one group closer to students than teachers: the students themselves.  Why are they left to their own, apparently inadequate, intrinsic motivations?

I, therefore, modestly propose that all students who score in the upper level of the Dakota STEP or its Common Core replacement be paid $300.  Further, all juniors who score one (1) point above the national average on the ACT or SAT be given an additional $500. I would not object if the Governor, who believes STEM is the ultimate end of education, added $200 dollars to those who achieve the overall national average but score two (2) points above average math and science.

I'm not sure why anyone would object to this proposal.  It uses the Governor's logic about money being the best motivator.  It applies the stimulus to the people with the most at stake.  It will probably affect more than 20% of the students, so those with egalitarian impulses should love it as well.

Another Modest Proposal: Create A Multiparty System

This Steve Benen post on the House Democratic and Republican Whips getting their troops in line makes the U.S. House of Representatives sound a bit too much like a lower house in a parliamentary system.  Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer "has been whipping against the Boehner bill very hard" while Speaker Boehner apparently "told his caucus this morning, “Get your ass in line.”

So we will be left with a situation that has the Republican House pass a debt ceiling bill that won't pass the Democratic Senate or be signed by a Democratic President.  Meanwhile, a Democratic Senate will pass a debt ceiling bill that won't pass the Republican House.

If Congress is going to act like a parliament, then the U.S. needs to change its two-party system to a multiparty system.  In the current situation, a multiparty system would keep the Tea Party tail from wagging the Republican dog.  A multiparty system also might allow for more libertarian and liberal alliances to slow down the assault on civil liberties.

I may be guilty of what Paul Krugman has taken to calling the "cult of centrism."  Jim Hightower has written There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos: A Work of Political Subversion.  I have a faint memory of  Dick Armey uttering the latter sentiment as well. 

In an act of presumption, I'm going to disagree with a a Nobel Laureate and beloved populist and conservative icons.  All seem to believe that one ought to avoid the center of the road and drive on the shoulder of the road or the ditch.  Driving on gravel roads has taught me that the ridge on the shoulder frequently pulls drivers into the ditch and the ditch is filled with rabid skunks and rattlesnakes.

Krugman is right when he asserts that the current system provides "no penalty for extremism; no way for most voters, who get their information on the fly rather than doing careful study of the issues, to understand what’s really going on."  A multiparty system might not have strict penalties for extremism, but it would also provide no rewards.  It would allow voters to drive rather than deal with dead or dangerous wildlife.

The Wall Street Journal Says Teachers Work Full Time

The Wall Street Journal reports that "Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] data from 2008 — the most recent available" shows that teachers work full time even if school is not in session during part of the summer.

Including hours teachers spend on work at home and outside the classroom, American primary-school educators spend 1,913 working in a year. According to data from the comparable year in a Labor Department survey, an average full-time employee works 1,932 hours a year spread out over 48 weeks (excluding two weeks vacation and federal holidays).

The OECD data tracks 27 countries.  Teachers in the United States put in nearly more 100 more per year than hours than second place New Zealand.

U.S. primary-school educators spent 1,097 hours a year teaching despite only spending 36 weeks a year in the classroom — among the lowest among the countries tracked. That was more than 100 hours more than New Zealand, in second place at 985 hours, despite students in that country going to school for 39 weeks. The OECD average is 786 hours.

The Journal adds a graph that shows the countries where teachers work the most hours.

The report is not completely rosy.

Despite the amount of time that teachers spend working, student achievement in the U.S. remains average in reading and science and slightly below average in math when compared to other nations in a separate OECD report. That remains a concern as education is one of the most important ways a country can foster long-term economic growth.

The Atlantic Wire offers two reasons for this anomaly.  First,

Business Insider reported that in comparison to other developed countries, American educators work the most hours of all industrialized nations, but are the fifth lowest paid after 15 years on the job. Finland, the company ranked highest in international tests, has teachers that work the fifth fewest hours, and are the ninth lowest paid.

Second,

. . . the New York Times reported that a study on comparative educational systems placed raising the status of the teaching profession as a top suggestion for the U.S. In the report, it was not nearly an issue of salaries. "University teaching programs in the high-scoring countries admit only the best students, and “teaching education programs in the U.S. must become more selective and more rigorous,” the report said. The problem there, however, is that while the average salary of a veteran elementary teacher in the U.S. was $44,172 in 2008, higher than the average of $39,426 across all OECD countries, that salary level was 40 percent below the average salary of other American college graduates. In Finland, by comparison, the veteran teacher’s salary was 13 percent less than that of the average college graduate’s.

I'll offer one more option to improve learning that I've written about before.  First in the Education Reform post.

Change the calendar to a 6 or 7 week on and 2 week off pattern instead of 9 months on 3 months off monstrosity that probably never worked anyway. Yes, that means teachers will have to teach more days during the calendar year.

I was a little more cynical in this post.

The school year should not be a nine month marathon with a three month vacation  Instead, it should be a series of six or nine week sessions separated by two or three week breaks.

I would suggest that one of the two week breaks be scheduled around the Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year season and another around Independence Day. The rest should follow the normal session.  The calendar should take into account holidays like Thanksgiving, Presidents' Day, and Martin Luther King Day.  Local districts could set a few others.

That's it; it's simple and clean.  I don't have any stats about effectiveness or cost.  It can't be worse than the calendar that most of us work under now, and I'm positive students will learn more, so I'm pretty sure no one will think about adopting it.

So, I'll offer the modest proposal one more time.  Spread out the year, and shorten the days a bit.  If teachers already put in full time hours, there's no reason not to.  I'm certain it'll help learning

Of Teaching And Testing

Today is the first day with students.  It’s a ritual; there’s a little dog and pony show, a few laughs, a few reminders, and the hope for a fresh start.  

Yesterday, the 2010 ACT data were released. It’s a ritual; there’s a big dog and pony show, several sorrowful condemnations of the nation’s secondary education system, and demands for wholesale change.  

According to the Wall Street Journal article “Scores Stagnate At High Schools,”  “fewer than 25% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT college-entrance exam possessed the academic skills necessary to pass entry-level courses.”  Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, asserts that these scores indicate "High schools are the downfall of American school reform. . . ."  

First, without access to the actual data, one has to assume that ACT released the scores of only students who graduated in 2010 not students who took the test in 2010.  Large numbers of juniors take the test every spring.  Juniors have completed only 75% of their high school education; they probably shouldn’t be college ready.  Second, many seniors take the tests offered in September or October.  Once again, they have over half of their senior year to develop the requisite skills.  

ACT may have some formula to take these factors into account. Outside of Delphi, prophecy is a tricky business. I’d like to know how a testing company can determine whether a given student will or will not learn enough to prepare them for college when meteorologists have trouble accurately predicting tomorrow’s weather.  

Let’s assume that ACT has correctly ascertained that graduates are not prepared for the future, and let’s take at face value that this fact “suggests that the core courses they are taking are not sufficient to prepare them for what they will face in college or the work force."  What should the education establishment do?  I want to do my job.  I don’t want to send students out to fail.  

I’ll offer a few modest proposals.  I would guess that they will be ignored.  

First, colleges and universities should end their practice of accepting students in October or November.  No student should be accepted until April 15.  Students who have been accepted don’t need to work with the same rigor as those who are still trying to impress admission committees.  

Second, colleges and universities need to reject more applicants.  If more students saw that poor high school performance meant not being able to attend college, more students would work.  Listening to lectures is preferable to asking “Do you want fries with that?” 

Third, scrap NCLB.  Under NCLB, high schools are applying a version of the Pareto principle; 80% of the effort and resources are going to the 20% who must be brought up the proficient so that America can say 100% of its students are proficient in reading and math.  The rest of the students are given the other 20% of a school’s resources.  Moving away from NCLB will allow schools to allocate more resources to prepare students for college.  

Fourth, lengthen or alter the school year.  The WSJ article quotes Joseph Harris, director of the National High School Center at the American Institutes for Research, who says, "We have a conflict where we are trying to increase the rigor and push kids to learn more, yet we try to do all of this in the same 180 days, 40-50 minute classes we've always had.  High schools are still very traditional institutions."  

There’s no doubt in my mind that teachers and schools can and should do more.  The problem is that most solutions forced upon secondary education have worsened the situation.  This round of hand-wringing is unlikely to change that trend.

A Modest Proposal For Government; It Will Be Ignored

This great idea comes from blogger E.D. Kain,  I agree with the general concept, but I really love the specific examples.

In any case, I like the idea of sunset provisions for government institutions themselves. I’m not sure if this has ever been tried. But wouldn’t it have been wonderful to write in not only a sunset provision for the Patriot Act, but for the entire Department of Homeland Security?

Too often our government is a self-serving, bloated mega-institution incapable of ever cutting off any of its outgrown limbs. Making more if it temporary – or at least writing in the possibility of temporariness when constructing it – would at the very least give these big government institutions a reason to try to remain relevant.

Of course, the downside would be an even more concerted effort to self-preserve, but at least there would be a conversation going on about whether survival was in the best interests of the nation at large.

Another Modest Proposal That Will Be Ignored

It's Spring, and in the words of Willy Loman, "I'm tired to the death."  In a season that's become a metaphor for renewal, fatigue seems out of place.  The dissonance between what my energy level is and what I think it should be has prompted this post about a calendar proposal that no one in South Dakota will adopt.

The school year should not be a nine month marathon with a three month vacation  Instead, it should be a series of six or nine week sessions separated by two or three week breaks. 

I would suggest that one of the two week breaks be scheduled around the Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year season and another around Independence Day. The rest should follow the normal session.  The calendar should take into account holidays like Thanksgiving, Presidents' Day, and Martin Luther King Day.  Local districts could set a few others.

That's it; it's simple and clean.  I don't have any stats about effectiveness or cost.  It can't be worse than the calendar that most of us work under now, and I'm positive students will learn more, so I'm pretty sure no one will think about adopting it.