Sticks and Carrots

During the eight years of the recent Bush administration education was subjected to a school reform model that relied largely on "sticks"as a motivational device. The "No Child Left Behind" version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, while having some redeeming qualities (eg the focus on disaggregation of data), largely depended on coercive strategies to get things done. Schools and school people were put on notice that if schools did not meet the arbitrary standards set by states, they would be put into a track whre more and more decisions were made by those outside the school.

The Obama administrtion has taken a slightly different approach. They are using more "carrots" as incentives to created change. The "Race to the Top" competition is putting four billion dollars into education and they are suggesting that the new reauthorization of ESEA will use competition between schools and districts as its lever for change.

Now there is not argument that carrots are tastier than sticks, but it IS good to remember that a carrot is just a stick you can eat. In other words, while the tone may be "kinder and gentler" (to quote another Bush)the approach relies on the same basic assumptions of how you get people to move. You either threaten them with a stick or entice them with a carrot.

The problem with both these approaches is that they rely on extrinsic threats and rewards to move people. They assume that education is external and mechanistic and if you can just leverage things different behavior will result. However, education is not external and mechanistic--it is internal and organic. It comes from the inside out and it depends on the humanity of the teacher and student to succeed. It is perhaps more dependent on intrinsic rewards than any other business out there.

Daniel Pink, the author of "A Whole New Mind" (which should be a must read for any educator) has written a new book called "Drive: The Truth About What Motivates Us." In this book, Pink mounts extensive research to make the point that extrinsic motivation works when the work is repetitive and simple. When it requires creativity and innovation, intrinsic rewards are best. He suggests that work that involves autonomy, mastery and purpose go further in promoting creative expression.

Teaching and learning, by their very nature, require creative expression and would best be promoted through a reliance on intrinsic rewards. Merit pay and other forms of pay for performance, which currently are the rage in Washington and which are being promoted by the Obama administration, seems to be exactly the wrong thing to do in the context of expecting better classroom performance. Perhapds policy makers should abandon the idea of sticks or carrotss and focus more on how we might promote autonomy, mastery, and purpose in our classrooms.

(This entry first appeared on the Developmental Studies Blog.)

Race to the Trough

I wish I could claim this title but I got it from a friend, David Berliner. I use it because it so perfectly describes what is happening with education policy. President Obama and his education team were met with great anticipation a year ago. Most educators felt their long nightmare of NCLB would be over--that we would have a more enlightened approach to education. And to give credit where credit is due, they have changed the tone and been better listeners to the pain that folks in the field feel, but the thrust of their reforms look suspiciously like the ones of the last administration--more accountability, an emphasis on assessment, more charter schools and they have raised the ante by pushing measuring and rewarding teacher quality through test results.

The main push for education improvement lies in the "Race to the Top" efforts. This will award over 4 billion dollars to states that meet the criteria for the money to create innovation. The implication of the requirements is that states must have laws and policies that reflect the expecations of the administration. They have traded the "stick" of the Bush administration (which threatened the removal of federal money if states did not comply) with the "carrot" of improved resources. Given the current status of education funding in most states with draconian cuts being passed by money strapped legislatures, it is little wonder that forty states went after the competitive money.

Now 4 billion seems like a lot, but when divided across a number of states it starts to diminish in impact. And when one considers that it represents less than one percent of current education funding, the administration has been able to wring a lot of change out of people for a little investment. It reminds me of the old joke where a guy approaches a young lady and offers her a $100 to sleep with him. She is very insulted and says, "what do you mean? How could you think I would sleep with you for a lousy $100. What do you think I am?" The man replies, "I know what you are, we are just negotiating the price." Well, it would appear that the price for buying the compliance of states on continuing the policy of pushing education towards controlling and mechanistic solutions to educations's woes is four billion dollars. They know what we are, they have just established the price.

Meanwhile, is this likely to work? There is little arguement that better assessment and data systems are needed in education. But there is also scant evidence that charter schools are more effective than regular public schools. Some are, some aren't. And when it comes to pay for teacher performance, there is really a lot of evidence that it is counterproductive. Daniel Pink has just released a wonderful new book called "Drive" which deals with what motivates people. It would seem financial rewards are really not useful if workers are not making a resonsable salary and most teachers are not. Further, he cites a great deal of research that shows that if work is repetitive and simple, financial rewards can be effective. However, if the work is complex and requires creativity, they can actually undermine improved performance.

Now I happen to believe that teaching is a complex, creative act, so I question the assumptions that underlie performance pay. But now that I think of it, if policy makers are successful in driving education towards a stimulus-response model of learning as the increased emphasis on test results are doing, then education may well become a repetitive and simplistic act and the race to the top will succeed. However, it will succeed as a race to the top of a very low hill.