High School Kills Color-Coded ID Program

theodp writes "Anaheim Union High School District has killed a controversial incentive program that assigned students color-coded ID cards and planners based on state test scores, required those who performed poorly to stand in a separate lunch line and awarded the others with discounts. The program was designed to urge students to raise scores on the California Standards Tests, but it also raised concern among parents and students who said it illegally revealed test scores and embarrassed those who didn't do well."

Comments

Wow, just write an 'F' on their forehead

[bryan1945]

Separate lines for lunch? Who could ever think this was a good idea. Sure, let the students doing well get some perks, just don't go around printing "Dumb" on the lesser achieving kids' foreheads. At least they wised up, even if it did take some external pressure to scrap the idea.

Re:Wow, just write an 'F' on their forehead

[Anonymous Coward]

Main problem I see would be reversial. Once you've created a social group, even one based on failure, those members of it will seek to make the best of it. It could easily lead to a cool-to-be-dumb situation, where those in the failgroup are proud to be a part of it and look down on the boring lameness of the higher achievers.

Re:Wow, just write an 'F' on their forehead

[Anonymous Coward]

How 'bout this. Starting with 5th grade give $1000 cash per year to each student in the top 5%. Then, the best might have $8000 ready for college and stand a fighting chance of actually being able to pay for it.

Re:Wow, just write an 'F' on their forehead

[Captain Hook]

Kids don't/can't think in terms of future careers because they have no real understanding of what those careers involve and thus what the consquences of those decisions actually are.

The result of a test taken in 5 grade (*1) could adversely affect future asperations through peer pressure of the group.

Note #1: I couldnt find out whether this scheme applied to all or just some of the Standardised Tests and so assume it work across all the tests, which start from Grade 5 (10-11 years old).

Re:Wow, just write an 'F' on their forehead

[eepok]

That sounds like a wonderful idea and I would have really loved it as a primary/secondary school student. But, that would have cost my high school $21,000 (400+ graduating class) for my graduating year... not to mention how that profit motive and even survival pressure from home would have further affected cheating at the top.

And why cater to the top 5%? They're already the most likely to get scholarship funding.

Re:Wow, just write an 'F' on their forehead

[Bob-taro]

Like all govt interference in the free market, the colleges will all raise their prices by $8000 in response

This inference is so stupid I gave up my mod points in this article just to point out that the inference you are making is COLOSALLY stupid. Like most glibertarian shibboleths, it has zero basis in fact.

You may disagree, but I think vim is right about that cause and effect - if a significant percentage of college entrants have subsidies, the price of tuition will tend to increase. Colleges are going to tend to charge as much as they can get away with, and that's not necessarily a bad thing - they want good salaries to attract good teachers and have good lab equipment. It's not "glib" to point out these tradeoffs. Most debated issues involve tradeoffs.

Re:Wow, just write an 'F' on their forehead

[rsilvergun]

That's the hard part about modern America. We've let the education system slide so far down in funding that a decision you make in 5th grade will affect your chances you getting into college. I know lots of people in the 90s that blew it in school and made good later on because they could get into college with grants & scholarships. These days, with a 4 year degree costing $30k from a local State U (and that's just books & tuition, forget living expenses), it's not possible. I guess we could raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for more school. But, but.. Socialism!

Re:Wow, just write an 'F' on their forehead

[SpeZek]

And why cater to the top 5%? They're already the most likely to get scholarship funding.

Thank you very much for saying that.

I was just about 3rd in my class. #1 guy was #1 across the board, so he snapped up thousands of dollars of scholarships. I got $800.

#1 guy was from a wealthy, college educated family. He got a car for graduating, had an iphone, went on vacations to other countries, etc. I was from a working-class family, walked 2 km to school, and couldn't afford braces for my teeth or new sneakers. I needed those scholarships more than he did, and arguably, his domestic situation (not to mention college-educated parents) allowed him to perform better than me. Unfair all around for scholarships to be based strictly on merit.

Re:Wow, just write an 'F' on their forehead

[mcalchera]

Some states offer an incentive very similar to this. I went to high school in Kentucky, which has a program called KEES that rewards kids that get good grades with scholarship money. A student that gets straight A's and a 28 or higher on their ACT would have $2500/year for college. The caveat is that it can only be used in Kentucky schools, but for those who were going to go in-state anyway it provides a little extra incentive for doing well in high school.

Re:Wow, just write an 'F' on their forehead

[eepok]

You don't get offered money outright for getting a high GPA. Those capable of getting that high GPA through high school, however, are *much* more likely to receive financial aid in the form of scholarships because of their better-honed intellect and writing capabilities.

While it seems callous, to ask about another's daughter: How many competitive scholarships did she apply for? Write papers for?

Those that don't do well should be embarassed

[Crashmarik]

Anything and everything to motivate them. Coddling children doesn't do them any favors.

Re:Those that don't do well should be embarassed

[Xugumad]

Flogging? Wimp! We should merely shoot the lowest 10% every year to weed out those who are holding the others back! Second chances be damned...

Re:Those that don't do well should be embarassed

[amiga3D]

Isn't motivating children their parents job? I'm saddened that they even came up with an idea like this. Public humiliation is more likely to destroy motivation than provide it.

Re:Those that don't do well should be embarassed

[OzPeter]

Anything and everything to motivate them. Coddling children doesn't do them any favors.

Totally agree with you about the codling. However it is one thing to motivate, it is another thing to humiliate. No matter what the intention, this sort of marking probably would lead to a hostile environment - and hence worsen the outcome rather than improve it.
 
And at the risk of being Godwinned, visibly marking people by categories doesn't have a very good history.

Re:Those that don't do well should be embarassed

[Inda]

Yeah! Stand them in the corner with a pointy hat with the word "Dunce" on it! That'll teach them!

Rewarding is far, far better.

In my daughter's school they offer reward cards; they're a bit like loyalty cards. Instead of the old gold stars, they are now given points that can be exchanged for material goods. A point for handing in homework, an extra point for handing it in early, points for winning competitions, be they sports or academic.

By the end of the first year, if you do the minimum, you'll have enough for a Wii remote, cheap mobile phone, or little MP3 player. By the end of the fifth year, if you are a grade A++ student, attend all the after school clubs, etc, you'll have enough for a netbook.

Sounds good to me.

This is one of the new UK academies, if anyone is interested. And, one year in, is the highest ranking school in the somewhat deprived and poverty stricken area we live in.

Re:Those that don't do well should be embarassed

[Nadaka]

Give some meaning to a high-school diploma. Many schools promote students out of the school, even students who don't meet minimum the attendance requirements.

Bull fucking shit.

Long story short: I grew up with a chronic illness that kept me out of school for months at a time, I still took the tests and did the busy work and aced everything. The school administration failed to accept my handicap and informed me that I would be stuck in high school until I was 21 due to my absences despite being on the honor roll. And then they had the gall to tell me that I wasn't allowed to take my GED until I was 18.

You only get to graduate if you play their authoritarian game, it doesn't matter if there are extenuating circumstances, it doesn't matter if you are legally disabled. If you don't or can't, you get fucked. A high school diploma means only that you followed the herd long enough to prove to the wanna be fascists that you will conform and submit to arbitrary authority.

Re:Those that don't do well should be embarassed

[Glothar]

So you hate immigrants and poor people.

But then you say: No, that's not what I said. I said we should punish the people with low-achievement.

And this is where intelligent people point out that you have proposed a policy that would continue to ensure that poor people receive fewer opportunities to improve themselves to improve their path in life and to help make sure that as many immigrants as possible are funneled into that "poor people" bracket regardless of their actual intelligence. Sure, it's not targeted directly at those people, but it includes them far more often than other groups. It's subtle, but you're blind if you can't see it.

So yeah... that's a great plan for furthering the dominance of rich, white, corporate America. And thank God (just the Christian one, of course), because those rich, white, corporate Americans need help right now.

Re:Those that don't do well should be embarassed

[Uberbah]

You work, you have some disposable income. That some of that income goes to gas/rent/utilities does not change the fact that you have a direct reward for the work that you do. No such thing exists with schoolwork - unless you get some kind of incentive to perform.

You can try to make the situation more complicated through word salads and Gumby-style reaching, but it's really pretty simple.

Work Reward.

Re:Those that don't do well should be embarassed

[Belial6]

And yet we do it in pretty much every High School in America. A big letter blazoned across the students chest to show that they are excelling. It is sad that so many people think this is a great idea right up to the point that we start doing it for intelligence instead of muscle.

Re:So, jocks and cheerleaders to the front again?

[Lumpio-]

Funny. Here in Finland the back of the bus is traditionally reserved for the troublemakers. Just like the back of the classroom. Further away from the authorities (bus driver, teacher), less surveillance.

"What is your classification, student?"

[Chris Mattern]

"Classification RED, friend computer!"

"I'm sorry, that information is not available at this time."

Re:"What is your classification, student?"

[joocemann]

I think its kind of funny that the negative impact of being lower-scoring, instead of driving the kids to become higher-scoring, drove them to complain about how it hurts their feelings. Its so ironic you can taste metal.

Saying it hurts your feelings to be classified as lower achieving has no impact on the reality that one is actually lower achieving. It changes nothing, and you're still dumb whether or not someone says it. If there is anything to learn from this complaint it is that the program did not efficiently motivate lower achieving kids to do anything but complain about their feelings being hurt. I'm not saying they should change or cancel the program because it hurt feelings, but because it failed to make them perform better and only succeeded to make them complain louder.

I guess this is what happens when society makes efforts to stop bullying. Bullying was the way that the dumb kids got to feel good and better than the smart kids. Society is working to end bullying --- those kids lose their outlet for their ego -- society tries to promote work and study -- those kids find a new outlet for the ego, defending lower-achievement by saying their feelings are hurt.

Here is the reality: 20 years ago, some douchebag slapped me in the back of the head and called me a nerd and got away with it. Now, his idiot son who also slacks just like he did, and learned how to be a slacker from dad's example, isn't allowed to slap nerds in the back of the head --- so instead he cries about his feeling being hurt when his ill-wits are made apparent, all the while avoiding the work and effort it would take to remedy the situation and become educated.

Education

[Zaldarr]

Well in any case, effective education is a huge problem, especially with No Child Left Behind screwing things up even more, and something needs to be done. That something should be to stop passing everyone and making tests so easy a rhesus monkey could come out with a HD. This is a rather misguided way to address the problem. Rather than humiliating every kid who doesn't do terribly well, what about providing more support and time? Did they consider that?

Re:Education

[amiga3D]

That would require effort. They chose the path that left it all up to the kids.

Encouragement, not punishment.

[ApepUK]

I've read studies in the past that have shown that children, whether intelligent or struggle to learn, benefit greatly from encouragement rather than either reward or punishment. I truely believe in this.

By all means reward children for doing well, but certainly not punish those who struggle. Everybody is different and will excel at different subjects and it's entirely possible that some may be undiagnosed dyslexics or even have eyesight issues.

In any case, children should be praised for the work they do whether it is better than others or not, but then encouraged to learn how to improve themselves and nurture their enthusiasm for it.

Re:Encouragement, not punishment.

[RazzleFrog]

It's human nature in general - not just for students - that we are more successful and more happy when we do things that challenge and excite us than when we do things for the sake of rewards or to prevent punishment. What's even worse is that once we've done something for reward it is even less appealing when we stop receiving the award again.

For example, somebody who take photos for fun decides to become a professional photographer. Once they start getting paid it becomes yet another job and loses the fun. Even when they quit doing it for pay it still doesn't hold the appeal it did before.

The same goes for children and education. Telling a class they will get a pizza party if they all pass an exam is an awful strategy for motivating students. If you instead instill excitement and interest in the topic itself they will not only do well on the exam but they often will go BEYOND the requirements of the exam because they are excited about the topic.

Re:Or...

[RazzleFrog]

Standardized exams are awful measures of intelligence or ability. They are strictly measures of how well you do at taking exams. This is one of the greatest failings of our education system - that we teach to exams instead of encouraging creativity, instilling excitement, and developing real world skills.

And this is coming from somebody who was a very good test taker.

I bet some kids revel in being in the "bad" lines.

[gfxguy]

For the same reason kids wear their pants around their asses, if it makes them look "bad," they would revel in it. These are the same kids flunking out already anyway. Perhaps if you just come right out and call their behavior 'stupid' instead of trying to coddle them, perhaps if you worry more about their futures instead of worry about offending them, it might help some tiny fraction of them.

In today's culture, I picture the kids in the "smart" lines being bullied and ostracized instead of the other way around, though.

Re:good thing they got rid of it

[amiga3D]

God forbid you should feel bad about being a dickhead. You know, some people really are stupid, or at least not as smart as you think you are. Some people put forth effort yet fail to achieve. How about those people? Should they be humiliated? Maybe if you have a child and he's a difficult one to potty train you'd make him walk around with a diaper on his head to motivate him?

Unintended effects

[dkleinsc]

(A) Test scores are heavily correlated with demographic factors such as race and social class. In fact, there's some evidence that they're correlated more with those sorts of demographics than they are with factors like time spent studying. So whether it was intended or not, it's quite possible that the effect of this would have been to separate out, with official sanction, the generally wealthier white and Asian-American kids from the mostly poorer black and Hispanic kids, and treat the first group better than the second group.

(B) For kids who's friends are generally anti-intellectual, they might be more embarrassed to be in the "smart" line rather than the "stupid" line. If you're in a crowd where most everybody is heading nowhere in life and knows it, they will often single out the people who are going somewhere for bullying to try to make themselves feel better about their utter lack of prospects.

(C) Threats only get kids to fake learning, not to really learn stuff. You can get kids to pretend to go to study groups but really just hang out with friends. You can get kids to cram for the next exam and promptly forget everything the next day. You can get kids to cheat on their test to avoid school or parental consequences. But you can't get kids to really learn and internalize what they're supposed to know with threats - for that you need to actually give them a goal that their learning will help accomplish.

Re:Unintended effects

[dkleinsc]

Here's another way of looking at it:

Imagine a society in which only a couple of you know has anything beyond a high school education. This could be in the inner city, it could be in Appalachia, it could be in the middle of rural Kansas. There's basically no difference in expected income between those who made the effort to get a high school degree and those who didn't, because most everybody who can get a job is working at about $6-10 an hour (retail, fast food, etc).

Now, when a kid in that society gets into high school, they have 3 basic options:
1. Work their butt off and hope that their grades and community work and the like are enough to get them some scholarships so they can get out of the 'hood / town / middle of nowhere.
2. Muddle their way through with mid-to-low-level grades, work part time if possible, and hope that their diploma will get them to the point where they can get closer to the $10-15 per hour level rather than the $6-10 per hour level.
3. Get a job when they're 16 and stop going to school, maybe picking up a GED somewhere along the line.

Now, for a very few very smart kids, option 1 is viable. But most of the rest will have a choice between 2 and 3. Now, the long-term prospects for a kid who chooses to finish high school are somewhat better, but the short-term prospects are better for the kid who starts working full time because their family almost definitely needs the money. So just based on rational economic choices, it's not surprising that investing heavily in studying is not something that most kids in this situation will do.

It's about money

[amiga3D]

This is what comes from tying performance to pay. I know schools here are awarded more money from the state as well as teacher performance bonuses for better scores on standardized tests. It's had this kind of push here as well. Lots of schools have even been caught cheating to get their scores up. Desperation brings on this kind of craziness.

Re:It's about money

[L4t3r4lu5]

I've worked in a secondary school with performance based pay, and I've heard at least one member of staff tell a disruptive student that in the performance based pay scheme, there is room to let one or two children utterly fail in order for the rest to achieve, and that he was one of the "acceptable failures".

Not sure if she has that job anymore.

Re:It's about money

[Archangel Michael]

What is the option? Let the one disrupt the class so none are educated? We (in education) are under the tyranny of the minority, catering to those on the dark fringes. It surely isn't helping the 80% that want to be there and learn. Penalize the good because we're too afraid to penalize the bad?

Re:good thing they got rid of it

[jellomizer]

There is also the fact if they are marked as stupid then they will work to meet that expectation.
I have seen a lot of actually smart and talented kids just barely pass school, just because they were labeled as such. Usually a kid at an early age will find what his place in life is and stick with it.

Oh well I guess I am not smart, but I am good at sports so I will be the perfect jock.
Well I am not good at sports but people think I am funny so I will be the class clown. ...
Kids find their Cliques to belong in.

By having a color system, it makes it harder for the large number of posers. The geek who doesn't get good grades, or the Jock who does.

In school personal success is much different then adult thinking.

Now what they really should do. Is stop listening to all the parents who beg, plead and threaten lawsuits for not to keep there kid back a grade, if they fail the class. If they fail the class then they should have to retake it over again, until they pass it. This shouldn't be something to be ashamed of. A lot of smart kids do fail classes for various reasons.

When I was in college I had to take Calculus I twice. The first time I got a C- in it and I wasn't happy with the fact that I didn't absorb the information I was use to in a Math Class. So I took it again and I did much better the second time, and also I felt like I knew the material and what do do with it. Then my following math courses were much easier. We shouldn't punish the children for not getting the material as well as others, there should be a system in place to catch those who falter and try to get them back and going again.

Great idea!

[mwvdlee]

Let's start by color coding the ID's of the people who thought of this plan to a bright red banning them from using the lunchrooms altogether.

AFAIK, the most effective way to motivate children to perform better in school is to actually treat them the same as better performing children; people tend to behave in the way you treat them.

....and made the smart kids targets as well

[Madman]

As a parent I'd be more worried about my kid being targeted for being smart than stupid. Maybe in addition to a nice bracelet they should give the good scorers Jujitsu classes as well so they can protect themselves from the jocks.

Re:....and made the smart kids targets as well

[Anonymous Coward]

And Billy gets suspended, dragged through the courts and a reputation for being a trouble maker because he dared to fight back and kick the star quarter back in his knee.

Though you are correct he was never piked on by a bullying jock again.

Or better yet..

[Mordermi]

Actually fail them when they fail? Rather than slow a senior English class down to the level of the kid with a third grade reading level, just fail the people that can't keep up. That is motivation in itself. There are no one worries about bad grades or failing anymore because they know that they will be babied through school and not have to lift a finger to get their diploma.

If it weren't for No Child Left Behind then schools wouldn't have as much need to come up with off the wall programs like this.

Re:So, jocks and cheerleaders to the front again?

[Jason Levine]

Not just in Finland. When I was taking the bus (Long Island, NY), it was jocks and popular kids in the back and nerds in the front. I'd often ride in the first row.

Re:school administration

[vlm]

Every day I see more and more items coming out of our educational system that make me ask 'where the heck are the parents' when these dumbass policies are being implemented?

Probably at work in a highly classist environment where certain "grades" of people have to share cubes in open plan, some have their own cubes in open plan, some have their own "full wall" cubes in non-open plan, some have an office... Management is allowed to park in the nearby attached parking garage, minions get to find their own spot far away, etc. Probably the plan makes a lot of sense to them.

Re:good thing they got rid of it

[FredFredrickson]

Seriously, I was an unchallenged child in school. I got horrible grades because I didn't find any use in homework. I always aced the tests because I knew the material well, but saw no value in wasting my time on homework. I would regularly get Cs and Ds because homework was weighed heavily in deciding the grade. At no point was my actual grasp on the material considered.

That being said, the kids who didn't learn the material well, but did a lot of busy work at home usually passed as well with similar grades. It was a system that benefited nobody.

Re:So, jocks and cheerleaders to the front again?

[Kabuthunk]

I've never understood this, but I grew up in the country. Where I was, your location on the bus was dictated by age. And you looked FORWARD to being at the back of the bus. Back seat was basically the grade 11's and 12's, and it worked its way younger until the youngest at the front.

Re:good thing they got rid of it

[j-beda]

Once a child is pegged as being a penny, it is pretty hard to become a quarter. Not because the child is unable or unwilling, but because continuous lack of expectation from the teacher is killing all forms of motivation.

Even worse - the teacher doesn't even have to supply these expectations - the kids will do it themselves. A similar experiment was done where they gave a bunch of little kids a math test, and then told half of them they did well, and half they did poorly then tracked their future math prospects. The kids they told did poorly ended up doing poorly going forward - even if those kids had actually done well!

Similarly, they (whoever "they" were) took a bunch of kids and gave them some word puzzles, and afterwards told half "Hey you did great! You must be smart!", and the other half "Hey you did great! You must have worked hard!" then they let them choose some new puzzles to try. The group labeled "smart" tended to choose the simpler puzzles to work on, while those labeled "hard workers" tended to choose the more challenging ones. Seemingly the "smart" kids wanted to get more "your're smart" praise, while the "hard work" kids were trying to demonstrate more of their "hard work".

Most of the evidence-based ideas on how to best run an educational system back up the idea of promoting the model of "hard work leads to success" rather than the model of "innate talent leads to success". Sure, we want to celibate success so maybe the top performer deserves a gold star, but even more important would be to give positive reinforcement for those who manage great improvements and make it part of the culture of learning to recognize the rewards of hard work and practice. In every field that I have seen research on (math skills, violin skills, hockey skills, etc.) all the people at the "top of the game" did a whole bunch of work, and everyone who did a whole bunch of work was at the top of the game. Once one is beyond a pretty basic level of physical and mental innate ability (in other words, excepting those with significant mental or physical disability) success at every field studied is almost entirely predicted by the amount of training done.

"Color-Coded IDs" do not really seem likely to be an effective tool to assist in the goal of better learning.

US funds K-12 very well

[Quila]

In fact, we're near the top for the amount of money we spend per pupil.

The problem is much of that is wasted: bloated administrations, feel-good PC courses that don't help core education, and teachers unions that flat-out admit they don't give a damn about students.

Add to that apathetic parents, and you have a crappy school system that won't get better no matter how much money we pump into it.

Re:good thing they got rid of it

[HeckRuler]

Whoa, hold up a second... Did Hognoxious's post motivate you to do better?
Think about that.

Now read your post.
Now look at me.
Now look at your post.
Now look at Hognoxious.

Now who is insightful?