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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."
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.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
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.
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...
"Classification RED, friend computer!"
"I'm sorry, that information is not available at this time."
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.
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.
(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.
I am officially gone from
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.
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.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
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.
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.