I get the impression we are really in violent agreement. In the previous education thread, I went as far as to say that we should focus schools to educate with a local goal. Screw this tract that everyone needs to be prepared for college nonsense. Instead, people need to learn more about the education necessary to live day to day. You could even realign interests by having more partnerships with the local shops and neighborhoods to try to get the kids educated and to elevate the society. Eventually, this should lead to a better neighborhood, which can help lead to better places to educate people. This is basically sacrificing the "perfect" result today in order to attempt it later, though.
I've always been a supporter of "trade" schools. This has become a somewhat dirty word, as of late, as the education system is really only designed for the needs of the middle-class. Therefore "go to college" is always the goal, and a school will get shit on for suggesting that some kids learn to be an electrician as it better suits their needs.
My partner teaches in a "college-bound" urban school. College isn't a reward to most of these kids. It's a fleeting dream if they didn't have to get to work at 18 to help support the family, their own child, etc.
I mean, she's already had THREE pregnancies amongst her students. That's a fucking death sentence on any actual college.
You know what the best option for actual advancement is? The fucking military where they teach you very marketable skills and assist in paying for higher ed.
I will now go so far as to say it doesn't just sound like it, but that we are in violent agreement.
You know what the best option for actual advancement is? The fucking military where they teach you very marketable skills and assist in paying for higher ed.
The service academies especially are top notch and you graduate debt free.
You know what the best option for actual advancement is? The fucking military where they teach you very marketable skills and assist in paying for higher ed.
The service academies especially are top notch and you graduate debt free.
Absolutely! But that, in and of itself, is a tragedy.
I won't knock military service in the least, but these are often not even presented as "rational" options to students in the same way that trade schools are spit on.
Of course, I'm coming for liberal MA, I'm sure the above statement is different for different states and areas of the country.
I think you misunderstand me. If we are wanting to attract talented and able people into the profession of soldiering, than lets start using monetary incentives. Nobody gives a fuck that the reason their doc became a doctor is that they like to help people. They want the best doctor they can get. We need the same attitude with people fighting our wars. I don't give a damned how much you are "in it" to serve your country. I want you to be able to fight.
A slight change.
I think in areas like teaching, motivation is EXTREMELY important, because it's so difficult to quantify the objective, and measure progress. You want to be sure that your teacher is doing what they're doing because they want to help kids, not because they want the payoff. I'm not saying that we shouldn't pay teachers a good wage, we want to make sure that those people who WANT to teach, can - but you shouldn't ever discount the motivation of someone who's there because they love what they do.
I think you misunderstand me. If we are wanting to attract talented and able people into the profession of soldiering, than lets start using monetary incentives. Nobody gives a fuck that the reason their doc became a doctor is that they like to help people. They want the best doctor they can get. We need the same attitude with people fighting our wars. I don't give a damned how much you are "in it" to serve your country. I want you to be able to fight.
A slight change.
I think in areas like teaching, motivation is EXTREMELY important, because it's so difficult to quantify the objective, and measure progress. You want to be sure that your teacher is doing what they're doing because they want to help kids, not because they want the payoff. I'm not saying that we shouldn't pay teachers a good wage, we want to make sure that those people who WANT to teach, can - but you shouldn't ever discount the motivation of someone who's there because they love what they do.
Then could you have possibly picked a worse example to change it to?
I think you misunderstand me. If we are wanting to attract talented and able people into the profession of soldiering, than lets start using monetary incentives. Nobody gives a fuck that the reason their doc became a doctor is that they like to help people. They want the best doctor they can get. We need the same attitude with people fighting our wars. I don't give a damned how much you are "in it" to serve your country. I want you to be able to fight.
A slight change.
I think in areas like teaching, motivation is EXTREMELY important, because it's so difficult to quantify the objective, and measure progress. You want to be sure that your teacher is doing what they're doing because they want to help kids, not because they want the payoff. I'm not saying that we shouldn't pay teachers a good wage, we want to make sure that those people who WANT to teach, can - but you shouldn't ever discount the motivation of someone who's there because they love what they do.
Then could you have possibly picked a worse example to change it to?
No. It is in fact an excellent example. Keeping in mind that I'm using it to mock your original statement.
But, I think that the relative example is that the focus is on "making teachers better" when the solution is probably closer, in my mind, to "how do we make students care about class more?"
The actual displaying of information so that students can learn it is a small portion of classroom teaching. Classroom management (getting kids to sit-down and shut-up) and student motivation (getting kids to do their work) are more important, and personally more difficult. Students are very much like horses, and knowledge is very much like water.
But, I think that the relative example is that the focus is on "making teachers better" when the solution is probably closer, in my mind, to "how do we make students care about class more?"
The actual displaying of information so that students can learn it is a small portion of classroom teaching. Classroom management (getting kids to sit-down and shut-up) and student motivation (getting kids to do their work) are more important, and personally more difficult. Students are very much like horses, and knowledge is very much like water.
Exactly. Do people really think there's no problem of motivation for non-college bound students? They'll just love learning so damn much that they'll bust their ass, even though getting better scores won't help them get into a good college that they think is utterly beyond their reach? Or because it'll attract the attention of employers, even though just about any job paying above minimum wage will require additional qualifications (that they can't get in high school)? Really?
I think Crowing is right; for students who see a direct link between school performance and eventual career success, there's no real issue. People who intend to go to college, largely the middle and upper classes, do just fine in school. Kids who for whatever reason don't intend to follow that path see school as largely useless in helping them prepare to support themselves in a good paying job - and that's because they're dead right. They'll have no trade or entry level certificates to get started in a trade or profession, and no one is going to care that they got a 3.2 instead of a 2.4 when they go to apply for a service job. What does their extra effort earn, from their perspective?
I personally think a bigger part of the solution is to make public education more valuable to these kids, either by convincing them that if they do well enough they CAN get through a 4 year college (there are some cool programs in this area) or by offering trade/profession based school options that are actually relevant to their futures. Of course, this is in addition to having to help these kids when their abusive step dad is on a bender of when the fridge is empty for three weeks because the food stamps ran out early.
I think you misunderstand me. If we are wanting to attract talented and able people into the profession of soldiering, than lets start using monetary incentives. Nobody gives a fuck that the reason their doc became a doctor is that they like to help people. They want the best doctor they can get. We need the same attitude with people fighting our wars. I don't give a damned how much you are "in it" to serve your country. I want you to be able to fight.
A slight change.
I think in areas like teaching, motivation is EXTREMELY important, because it's so difficult to quantify the objective, and measure progress. You want to be sure that your teacher is doing what they're doing because they want to help kids, not because they want the payoff. I'm not saying that we shouldn't pay teachers a good wage, we want to make sure that those people who WANT to teach, can - but you shouldn't ever discount the motivation of someone who's there because they love what they do.
Then could you have possibly picked a worse example to change it to?
No. It is in fact an excellent example. Keeping in mind that I'm using it to mock your original statement.
Then also keep in mind that we do in fact send anybody into the armed services that is physically fit. Hell, that is the fucking basis of the draft. Not to mention that a large lure into the military and whatnot are large financial grants that you are awarded after your service. I'm not saying I want people there that will actively sabotage the situation, but I do want people that can do the job well, despite what their intentions are.
I think you misunderstand me. If we are wanting to attract talented and able people into the profession of soldiering, than lets start using monetary incentives. Nobody gives a fuck that the reason their doc became a doctor is that they like to help people. They want the best doctor they can get. We need the same attitude with people fighting our wars. I don't give a damned how much you are "in it" to serve your country. I want you to be able to fight.
A slight change.
I think in areas like teaching, motivation is EXTREMELY important, because it's so difficult to quantify the objective, and measure progress. You want to be sure that your teacher is doing what they're doing because they want to help kids, not because they want the payoff. I'm not saying that we shouldn't pay teachers a good wage, we want to make sure that those people who WANT to teach, can - but you shouldn't ever discount the motivation of someone who's there because they love what they do.
Then could you have possibly picked a worse example to change it to?
No. It is in fact an excellent example. Keeping in mind that I'm using it to mock your original statement.
Then also keep in mind that we do in fact send anybody into the armed services that is physically fit. Hell, that is the fucking basis of the draft. Not to mention that a large lure into the military and whatnot are large financial grants that you are awarded after your service. I'm not saying I want people there that will actively sabotage the situation, but I do want people that can do the job well, despite what their intentions are.
I'm thinking more of organizations like Blackwater.
Right, their actions suck. But people's actions are driven by their motivations. And there's a reason why we want to have a volunteer army, and not have a draft, and not have mercenary companies. Because volunteer soldiers, who have the right motives, are almost always going to perform better, and in the countries' best interest.
Much in the same way, it's almost always going to be better to have a teacher who actually cares about educating the kids, and having them learn, versus one who cares about getting their numbers to look good so that they get the biggest bonus.
I work for the training department of a large company, and there are a lot of trainers whose bonuses are directly linked to the performance of their students. And it leads to rampant cheating on the part of the instructors. We have to design our systems to account for the fact that the instructors WILL attempt to cheat if given the opportunity. I think there's enough incentive for the students to cheat, which the instructors have to stop. I really don't want public schools to have to deal with the fallout of giving TEACHERS an incentive to cheat.
You know what, I'm just going to come out and say it.
Incentives don't work. Period.
And you know what? It's not just me saying this. DeMarco and Lister argue this point pretty clearly in their seminal work Peopleware, as does W. Edwards Deming. Not to mention that there are dozens upon dozens of studies showing this, not to mention a few spectacular cases in the public eye where incentive systems ran amok and caused massive damage - a good example of one is Enron, where the use of incentives and the culture that developed from that led to fraud and ultimately the collapse of the corporation.
Yet we continue to see incentive systems advocated and deployed. Why?
Simply put, they're easy. They're a shortcut around actually managing people that's simple to implement and appears to get results initially. So businesses go for them, because they appear to be a magic bullet. Besides, they think they have the perfect carrot figured out. And initially, it seems to work. But inevitably, the system breaks down because, as it turns out, people do like to do a good job. Feeling that you're doing something for the money tends to make people feel cheap and bad about themselves. Replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation just doesn't work, and causes conditions to worsen.
And as people have pointed out earlier in the thread, the main reason that the study in the OP showed improvement by adding extrinsic motivation for teachers in India is because there was a clear lack of intrinsic motivation. Unless someone can show that there truly is a massive problem with teachers in the US not being intrinsically motivated, then that's not really an issue here.
You know what, I'm just going to come out and say it.
Incentives don't work. Period.
And you know what? It's not just me saying this. DeMarco and Lister argue this point pretty clearly in their seminal work Peopleware, as does W. Edwards Deming. Not to mention that there are dozens upon dozens of studies showing this, not to mention a few spectacular cases in the public eye where incentive systems ran amok and caused massive damage - a good example of one is Enron, where the use of incentives and the culture that developed from that led to fraud and ultimately the collapse of the corporation.
Yet we continue to see incentive systems advocated and deployed. Why?
Simply put, they're easy. They're a shortcut around actually managing people that's simple to implement and appears to get results initially. So businesses go for them, because they appear to be a magic bullet. Besides, they think they have the perfect carrot figured out. And initially, it seems to work. But inevitably, the system breaks down because, as it turns out, people do like to do a good job. Feeling that you're doing something for the money tends to make people feel cheap and bad about themselves. Replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation just doesn't work, and causes conditions to worsen.
And as people have pointed out earlier in the thread, the main reason that the study in the OP showed improvement by adding extrinsic motivation for teachers in India is because there was a clear lack of intrinsic motivation. Unless someone can show that there truly is a massive problem with teachers in the US not being intrinsically motivated, then that's not really an issue here.
Did you, you know, actually read the study linked here. You know, the one that showed that incentives were the most successful thing they tried?
You know what, I'm just going to come out and say it.
Incentives don't work. Period.
And you know what? It's not just me saying this. DeMarco and Lister argue this point pretty clearly in their seminal work Peopleware, as does W. Edwards Deming. Not to mention that there are dozens upon dozens of studies showing this, not to mention a few spectacular cases in the public eye where incentive systems ran amok and caused massive damage - a good example of one is Enron, where the use of incentives and the culture that developed from that led to fraud and ultimately the collapse of the corporation.
Yet we continue to see incentive systems advocated and deployed. Why?
Simply put, they're easy. They're a shortcut around actually managing people that's simple to implement and appears to get results initially. So businesses go for them, because they appear to be a magic bullet. Besides, they think they have the perfect carrot figured out. And initially, it seems to work. But inevitably, the system breaks down because, as it turns out, people do like to do a good job. Feeling that you're doing something for the money tends to make people feel cheap and bad about themselves. Replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation just doesn't work, and causes conditions to worsen.
And as people have pointed out earlier in the thread, the main reason that the study in the OP showed improvement by adding extrinsic motivation for teachers in India is because there was a clear lack of intrinsic motivation. Unless someone can show that there truly is a massive problem with teachers in the US not being intrinsically motivated, then that's not really an issue here.
Did you, you know, actually read the study linked here. You know, the one that showed that incentives were the most successful thing they tried?
Did you, you know, actually read the last paragraph of that post you quoted?
Than claim they don't work well. Starting off with "incentives don't work" is god damned retarded, in light of the fact that they were shown to work.
Edit: To elaborate, I will not just accept a claim that they won't work, when they have been proven to work better than other methods somewhere. If you have a good study showing that they will not work here, fucking show it.
You know what the best option for actual advancement is? The fucking military where they teach you very marketable skills and assist in paying for higher ed.
The service academies especially are top notch and you graduate debt free.
Absolutely! But that, in and of itself, is a tragedy.
I won't knock military service in the least, but these are often not even presented as "rational" options to students in the same way that trade schools are spit on.
Of course, I'm coming for liberal MA, I'm sure the above statement is different for different states and areas of the country.
Not to rain on the parade, but they are not a rational choice these days. There is a war on you know.
All in all I would rather have 100k in debt, then a blown off limb or PSTD.
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
You know what, I'm just going to come out and say it.
Incentives don't work. Period.
And you know what? It's not just me saying this. DeMarco and Lister argue this point pretty clearly in their seminal work Peopleware, as does W. Edwards Deming. Not to mention that there are dozens upon dozens of studies showing this, not to mention a few spectacular cases in the public eye where incentive systems ran amok and caused massive damage - a good example of one is Enron, where the use of incentives and the culture that developed from that led to fraud and ultimately the collapse of the corporation.
Yet we continue to see incentive systems advocated and deployed. Why?
Simply put, they're easy. They're a shortcut around actually managing people that's simple to implement and appears to get results initially. So businesses go for them, because they appear to be a magic bullet. Besides, they think they have the perfect carrot figured out. And initially, it seems to work. But inevitably, the system breaks down because, as it turns out, people do like to do a good job. Feeling that you're doing something for the money tends to make people feel cheap and bad about themselves. Replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation just doesn't work, and causes conditions to worsen.
And as people have pointed out earlier in the thread, the main reason that the study in the OP showed improvement by adding extrinsic motivation for teachers in India is because there was a clear lack of intrinsic motivation. Unless someone can show that there truly is a massive problem with teachers in the US not being intrinsically motivated, then that's not really an issue here.
I just want to make sure I understand your thesis: Are you claiming that performance-based pay does not (consistently, in the long run, etc.) raise performance in any industry?
Because it reads like your saying that; but I have a hard time believing my eyes.
Actually, I think that is now my position: Incentives for students.
Good idea I'm semi fond of... I want to say 'Getting money for good grades' is bad, but I can't for the life of me find a reason why. So I think it's good. Maybe.
Actually, I'd say it is positively American.
What better American lesson can we teach kids that if they work hard they'll get paid?
I'm so on board with this. Don't get me wrong; doing so would make a statement about American students. But, fuck it.
Could you imagine the kind of pressure students would put on their teachers if student-quarterly-bonus check depended on performance?
Only one person is ultimately responsible for their success: the student.
This, especially in low-income areas, would shoot test scores through the roof.
Seriously, I think this is the solution. Really.
Really? Really?
Because students would automatically say "oh, gee, I didn't get my bonus, it must be my fault" and their parents would agree to that?
Actually, I think that is now my position: Incentives for students.
Good idea I'm semi fond of... I want to say 'Getting money for good grades' is bad, but I can't for the life of me find a reason why. So I think it's good. Maybe.
Actually, I'd say it is positively American.
What better American lesson can we teach kids that if they work hard they'll get paid?
I'm so on board with this. Don't get me wrong; doing so would make a statement about American students. But, fuck it.
Could you imagine the kind of pressure students would put on their teachers if student-quarterly-bonus check depended on performance?
Only one person is ultimately responsible for their success: the student.
This, especially in low-income areas, would shoot test scores through the roof.
Seriously, I think this is the solution. Really.
Really? Really?
Because students would automatically say "oh, gee, I didn't get my bonus, it must be my fault" and their parents would agree to that?
You HONESTLY think that's the way it would work?
No, not at all.
I think that if students were given an economic incentive to do well in school it would create a correlation between hard work and profit, and would move the focus more toward "real-world" motivations.
It's far from flawed, but many of us agree that the issue is that teachers don't work hard enough (as was the case in India) but that students, due to their socio-economic and cultural background in low-income, urban settings, aren't too motivated by "go to college". Putting "cash" (or an equivalent) in their hands is a supreme motivator.
There is no real answer. Merely that if we're going to have incentives, they're better off aimed at the students who are the ones who "don't care", not the teachers.
Teachers are very important pilers of our society and future of our children, family, society and country is dependent up on them. They want motivation to do their task in the best possible way.
Teachers are very important pilers of our society and future of our children, family, society and country is dependent up on them. They want motivation to do their task in the best possible way.
So you would say the problem is that, right now, teachers are lazy and don't really want to bother trying unless they get money for results?
I just want to make sure I understand your thesis: Are you claiming that performance-based pay does not (consistently, in the long run, etc.) raise performance in any industry?
Because it reads like your saying that; but I have a hard time believing my eyes.
I posted earlier my personal anecdote about how performance-based pay led to rampant cheating and corruption. That was why I made such a big deal about the motivations of the workers.
I would imagine that it can work, but only in certain situations. Kind of like how capitalism and the free market are extremely powerful, but are not useful in every situation. Just imagine salesmen on commission - do you really want that kind of attitude in EVERY JOB?
Fuck college, if you're poor and in a poor neighborhood entry to the trades will provide a much more realistic goal.
And that's a separate issue where we're so focused on college college college that we don't encourage kids to even really look into trades, when realistically speaking the community and the kid would be better of getting training to become a $30/hr electrician.
The current system is so focused on college that for those who are unmotivated or unable to achieve that end up in service industry, minimum-wage jobs, which don't really help them.
I just want to make sure I understand your thesis: Are you claiming that performance-based pay does not (consistently, in the long run, etc.) raise performance in any industry?
Because it reads like your saying that; but I have a hard time believing my eyes.
I posted earlier my personal anecdote about how performance-based pay led to rampant cheating and corruption. That was why I made such a big deal about the motivations of the workers.
I would imagine that it can work, but only in certain situations. Kind of like how capitalism and the free market are extremely powerful, but are not useful in every situation. Just imagine salesmen on commission - do you really want that kind of attitude in EVERY JOB?
This I'll gladly accept. I do want numbers/studies/something, though. Not just a blanket statement saying it won't work. As I have said before, I am doubtful.
The current system is so focused on college that for those who are unmotivated or unable to achieve that end up in service industry, minimum-wage jobs, which don't really help them.
Or those that don't have enough family money to get them in regardless. (I think I'm a little cynical today.)
You know what the best option for actual advancement is? The fucking military where they teach you very marketable skills and assist in paying for higher ed.
The service academies especially are top notch and you graduate debt free.
Absolutely! But that, in and of itself, is a tragedy.
I won't knock military service in the least, but these are often not even presented as "rational" options to students in the same way that trade schools are spit on.
Of course, I'm coming for liberal MA, I'm sure the above statement is different for different states and areas of the country.
Not to rain on the parade, but they are not a rational choice these days. There is a war on you know.
All in all I would rather have 100k in debt, then a blown off limb or PSTD.
Anyone who makes this sort of calculation shouldn't be in the military (which is no slight against them at all. If you aren't willing to serve in a combat theater, military service isn't your best choice*). For people who want both personal benefit and are willing to potentially sacrifice for the greater good, the military is a good choice. And if you aren't the college type and like the military, you can give your kid your college benefits under the new Post 9/11 GI bill (some restrictions apply).
* Speaking from an American perspective, where we are all-volunteer and tend to be fighting someone somewhere pretty much all the time.
Edit: And on the topic, I'm not a big fan of performance pay based on anecdotal experience, but could potentially reconsider. Last time I was payed by performance there was some pretty stellar gamemanship going on. I'm an economist by education so my analysis was perhaps more rigorous than most people, but I figured out how to cut corners to maximize my pay under a variety of circumstances, and in a way my boss would have been pissed at had I sat down and told him what I was doing (I wasn't doing anything unethical, but I worked to the letter of the compensation criteria rather than the spirit).
You need to be extremely careful of the economic incentives you give people, as people will do what you give them incentives for. If the sole determining factor of a teacher's wages is the Standardized End Semester test, they will teach to that test, and may even outright cheat depending on their ethics and the risks involved.
I also think that pay incentives for kids is the best way to fix poor school districts. I don't think using it in middle class and better schools would help though. That I think requires some way to make parents accountable but I'm not sure how to do that.
Tenure is a stupid ass system though.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
If things like this were more widespread they're wouldn't be an education problem. Pay schemes, block scheduling, GED programs... they're all just bandaids ignoring the actual problem
This is not a new idea, either. It's been tried in several different incarnations over the decades and the results have routinely blown every other education reform out of the water.
You know what, I'm just going to come out and say it.
Incentives don't work. Period.
And you know what? It's not just me saying this. DeMarco and Lister argue this point pretty clearly in their seminal work Peopleware, as does W. Edwards Deming. Not to mention that there are dozens upon dozens of studies showing this, not to mention a few spectacular cases in the public eye where incentive systems ran amok and caused massive damage - a good example of one is Enron, where the use of incentives and the culture that developed from that led to fraud and ultimately the collapse of the corporation.
Yet we continue to see incentive systems advocated and deployed. Why?
Simply put, they're easy. They're a shortcut around actually managing people that's simple to implement and appears to get results initially. So businesses go for them, because they appear to be a magic bullet. Besides, they think they have the perfect carrot figured out. And initially, it seems to work. But inevitably, the system breaks down because, as it turns out, people do like to do a good job. Feeling that you're doing something for the money tends to make people feel cheap and bad about themselves. Replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation just doesn't work, and causes conditions to worsen.
And as people have pointed out earlier in the thread, the main reason that the study in the OP showed improvement by adding extrinsic motivation for teachers in India is because there was a clear lack of intrinsic motivation. Unless someone can show that there truly is a massive problem with teachers in the US not being intrinsically motivated, then that's not really an issue here.
I just want to make sure I understand your thesis: Are you claiming that performance-based pay does not (consistently, in the long run, etc.) raise performance in any industry?
Because it reads like your saying that; but I have a hard time believing my eyes.
That's a simplistic way of putting it, but yes. The fact is that incentive pay ends up being a very corrosive element that destroys the intrinsic motivation that people have to do a good job. In addition, incentives cause workers to focus only on the metrics that have incentives attached, and ignore the ones that don't. Furthermore, if incentives aren't applied fairly, they can cause the breakdown of team structure. And once employees figure out how to game the system - it's pretty much over.
Here are some good articles dissecting the myth of incentives:
As for taeric, the study you posted in your OP is way too short to be anywhere near conclusive. They should have been aiming for the five-year milestone from the start, and not bothered with the one and two year milestones. And as I've said, there are many studies, across many fields, that show that incentive pay is dangerous to the health of the company. You have one study that shows in the short term that incentive pay can work. Which actually is one of the pitfalls of incentive systems - they can show early improvement, while the more dangerous aspects can take time to appear.
I can't believe I have to do this again, but no. Tenure isn't problematic for K-12, and amounts, simply, to a more trusted status. Think of it as if there were both "Junior Teachers" and "Senior Teachers" with tenure as the mechanic.
I also think that pay incentives for kids is the best way to fix poor school districts.
We have those, they're called "scholarships."
Um, no.
Does anyone have stats on where the majority of scholarships go, socio-economically? My gut wants to say that they actually end up going to the middle-class, but I believe that that is really a function of special needs groups with money to burn (i.e. Jews giving money to Jews... damn did I apply to a lot of "Jewish" scholarships).
Regardless, there isn't enough money in scholarships, and "work really hard and you have a chance along with 10,000 other kids to get some help with paying" doesn't make anyone work much harder. It really only helps those who are awesome students to begin with.
As for taeric, the study you posted in your OP is way too short to be anywhere near conclusive. They should have been aiming for the five-year milestone from the start, and not bothered with the one and two year milestones. And as I've said, there are many studies, across many fields, that show that incentive pay is dangerous to the health of the company. You have one study that shows in the short term that incentive pay can work. Which actually is one of the pitfalls of incentive systems - they can show early improvement, while the more dangerous aspects can take time to appear.
If there are many studies, across many fields, provide a few.
And you do realize that Spolsky actually uses incentives, right? He calls it profit sharing, but it is still a cash incentive. Essentially, his position is don't use bad cash incentive strategies.
Isn't capitalism based off of paying people more money for doing a good job?
No, capitalism is a complex interaction of minimizing labour costs and maximizing revenue generation for a given resource.
Yeah, I over simplified that. With regards to selling labor, isn't it economically advantageous to sell your self to the highest bidder? Therefore companies should be offering their better employees more money in order to keep them from leaving.
Posts
I will now go so far as to say it doesn't just sound like it, but that we are in violent agreement.
The service academies especially are top notch and you graduate debt free.
Absolutely! But that, in and of itself, is a tragedy.
I won't knock military service in the least, but these are often not even presented as "rational" options to students in the same way that trade schools are spit on.
Of course, I'm coming for liberal MA, I'm sure the above statement is different for different states and areas of the country.
A slight change.
I think in areas like teaching, motivation is EXTREMELY important, because it's so difficult to quantify the objective, and measure progress. You want to be sure that your teacher is doing what they're doing because they want to help kids, not because they want the payoff. I'm not saying that we shouldn't pay teachers a good wage, we want to make sure that those people who WANT to teach, can - but you shouldn't ever discount the motivation of someone who's there because they love what they do.
Then could you have possibly picked a worse example to change it to?
No. It is in fact an excellent example. Keeping in mind that I'm using it to mock your original statement.
The actual displaying of information so that students can learn it is a small portion of classroom teaching. Classroom management (getting kids to sit-down and shut-up) and student motivation (getting kids to do their work) are more important, and personally more difficult. Students are very much like horses, and knowledge is very much like water.
Exactly. Do people really think there's no problem of motivation for non-college bound students? They'll just love learning so damn much that they'll bust their ass, even though getting better scores won't help them get into a good college that they think is utterly beyond their reach? Or because it'll attract the attention of employers, even though just about any job paying above minimum wage will require additional qualifications (that they can't get in high school)? Really?
I think Crowing is right; for students who see a direct link between school performance and eventual career success, there's no real issue. People who intend to go to college, largely the middle and upper classes, do just fine in school. Kids who for whatever reason don't intend to follow that path see school as largely useless in helping them prepare to support themselves in a good paying job - and that's because they're dead right. They'll have no trade or entry level certificates to get started in a trade or profession, and no one is going to care that they got a 3.2 instead of a 2.4 when they go to apply for a service job. What does their extra effort earn, from their perspective?
I personally think a bigger part of the solution is to make public education more valuable to these kids, either by convincing them that if they do well enough they CAN get through a 4 year college (there are some cool programs in this area) or by offering trade/profession based school options that are actually relevant to their futures. Of course, this is in addition to having to help these kids when their abusive step dad is on a bender of when the fridge is empty for three weeks because the food stamps ran out early.
Then also keep in mind that we do in fact send anybody into the armed services that is physically fit. Hell, that is the fucking basis of the draft. Not to mention that a large lure into the military and whatnot are large financial grants that you are awarded after your service. I'm not saying I want people there that will actively sabotage the situation, but I do want people that can do the job well, despite what their intentions are.
I'm thinking more of organizations like Blackwater.
Right, which means we need to keep the certifications and the regulations in place. And, you know, actually use them.
Edit: Also, be fair. It is not the motive of those people that sucks. It is their actual actions.
Much in the same way, it's almost always going to be better to have a teacher who actually cares about educating the kids, and having them learn, versus one who cares about getting their numbers to look good so that they get the biggest bonus.
I work for the training department of a large company, and there are a lot of trainers whose bonuses are directly linked to the performance of their students. And it leads to rampant cheating on the part of the instructors. We have to design our systems to account for the fact that the instructors WILL attempt to cheat if given the opportunity. I think there's enough incentive for the students to cheat, which the instructors have to stop. I really don't want public schools to have to deal with the fallout of giving TEACHERS an incentive to cheat.
Incentives don't work. Period.
And you know what? It's not just me saying this. DeMarco and Lister argue this point pretty clearly in their seminal work Peopleware, as does W. Edwards Deming. Not to mention that there are dozens upon dozens of studies showing this, not to mention a few spectacular cases in the public eye where incentive systems ran amok and caused massive damage - a good example of one is Enron, where the use of incentives and the culture that developed from that led to fraud and ultimately the collapse of the corporation.
Yet we continue to see incentive systems advocated and deployed. Why?
Simply put, they're easy. They're a shortcut around actually managing people that's simple to implement and appears to get results initially. So businesses go for them, because they appear to be a magic bullet. Besides, they think they have the perfect carrot figured out. And initially, it seems to work. But inevitably, the system breaks down because, as it turns out, people do like to do a good job. Feeling that you're doing something for the money tends to make people feel cheap and bad about themselves. Replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation just doesn't work, and causes conditions to worsen.
And as people have pointed out earlier in the thread, the main reason that the study in the OP showed improvement by adding extrinsic motivation for teachers in India is because there was a clear lack of intrinsic motivation. Unless someone can show that there truly is a massive problem with teachers in the US not being intrinsically motivated, then that's not really an issue here.
Did you, you know, actually read the study linked here. You know, the one that showed that incentives were the most successful thing they tried?
Did you, you know, actually read the last paragraph of that post you quoted?
Edit: To elaborate, I will not just accept a claim that they won't work, when they have been proven to work better than other methods somewhere. If you have a good study showing that they will not work here, fucking show it.
Not to rain on the parade, but they are not a rational choice these days. There is a war on you know.
All in all I would rather have 100k in debt, then a blown off limb or PSTD.
I just want to make sure I understand your thesis: Are you claiming that performance-based pay does not (consistently, in the long run, etc.) raise performance in any industry?
Because it reads like your saying that; but I have a hard time believing my eyes.
Because students would automatically say "oh, gee, I didn't get my bonus, it must be my fault" and their parents would agree to that?
You HONESTLY think that's the way it would work?
No, not at all.
I think that if students were given an economic incentive to do well in school it would create a correlation between hard work and profit, and would move the focus more toward "real-world" motivations.
It's far from flawed, but many of us agree that the issue is that teachers don't work hard enough (as was the case in India) but that students, due to their socio-economic and cultural background in low-income, urban settings, aren't too motivated by "go to college". Putting "cash" (or an equivalent) in their hands is a supreme motivator.
There is no real answer. Merely that if we're going to have incentives, they're better off aimed at the students who are the ones who "don't care", not the teachers.
So you would say the problem is that, right now, teachers are lazy and don't really want to bother trying unless they get money for results?
I posted earlier my personal anecdote about how performance-based pay led to rampant cheating and corruption. That was why I made such a big deal about the motivations of the workers.
I would imagine that it can work, but only in certain situations. Kind of like how capitalism and the free market are extremely powerful, but are not useful in every situation. Just imagine salesmen on commission - do you really want that kind of attitude in EVERY JOB?
And that's a separate issue where we're so focused on college college college that we don't encourage kids to even really look into trades, when realistically speaking the community and the kid would be better of getting training to become a $30/hr electrician.
The current system is so focused on college that for those who are unmotivated or unable to achieve that end up in service industry, minimum-wage jobs, which don't really help them.
This I'll gladly accept. I do want numbers/studies/something, though. Not just a blanket statement saying it won't work. As I have said before, I am doubtful.
Or those that don't have enough family money to get them in regardless.
Anyone who makes this sort of calculation shouldn't be in the military (which is no slight against them at all. If you aren't willing to serve in a combat theater, military service isn't your best choice*). For people who want both personal benefit and are willing to potentially sacrifice for the greater good, the military is a good choice. And if you aren't the college type and like the military, you can give your kid your college benefits under the new Post 9/11 GI bill (some restrictions apply).
* Speaking from an American perspective, where we are all-volunteer and tend to be fighting someone somewhere pretty much all the time.
Edit: And on the topic, I'm not a big fan of performance pay based on anecdotal experience, but could potentially reconsider. Last time I was payed by performance there was some pretty stellar gamemanship going on. I'm an economist by education so my analysis was perhaps more rigorous than most people, but I figured out how to cut corners to maximize my pay under a variety of circumstances, and in a way my boss would have been pissed at had I sat down and told him what I was doing (I wasn't doing anything unethical, but I worked to the letter of the compensation criteria rather than the spirit).
You need to be extremely careful of the economic incentives you give people, as people will do what you give them incentives for. If the sole determining factor of a teacher's wages is the Standardized End Semester test, they will teach to that test, and may even outright cheat depending on their ethics and the risks involved.
Tenure is a stupid ass system though.
This is not a new idea, either. It's been tried in several different incarnations over the decades and the results have routinely blown every other education reform out of the water.
I hope that Obama pursues this aggressively.
Um, no.
That's a simplistic way of putting it, but yes. The fact is that incentive pay ends up being a very corrosive element that destroys the intrinsic motivation that people have to do a good job. In addition, incentives cause workers to focus only on the metrics that have incentives attached, and ignore the ones that don't. Furthermore, if incentives aren't applied fairly, they can cause the breakdown of team structure. And once employees figure out how to game the system - it's pretty much over.
Here are some good articles dissecting the myth of incentives:
Jeff Atwood discussing the failure of Amazon's Mechanical Turk system in the context of incentive pay.
Joel Spolsky dissects incentive pay and explains why it's not healthy.
An excellent article breaking down an incentive system, and why it's ultimately destructive.
As for taeric, the study you posted in your OP is way too short to be anywhere near conclusive. They should have been aiming for the five-year milestone from the start, and not bothered with the one and two year milestones. And as I've said, there are many studies, across many fields, that show that incentive pay is dangerous to the health of the company. You have one study that shows in the short term that incentive pay can work. Which actually is one of the pitfalls of incentive systems - they can show early improvement, while the more dangerous aspects can take time to appear.
I can't believe I have to do this again, but no. Tenure isn't problematic for K-12, and amounts, simply, to a more trusted status. Think of it as if there were both "Junior Teachers" and "Senior Teachers" with tenure as the mechanic.
Does anyone have stats on where the majority of scholarships go, socio-economically? My gut wants to say that they actually end up going to the middle-class, but I believe that that is really a function of special needs groups with money to burn (i.e. Jews giving money to Jews... damn did I apply to a lot of "Jewish" scholarships).
Regardless, there isn't enough money in scholarships, and "work really hard and you have a chance along with 10,000 other kids to get some help with paying" doesn't make anyone work much harder. It really only helps those who are awesome students to begin with.
If there are many studies, across many fields, provide a few.
And you do realize that Spolsky actually uses incentives, right? He calls it profit sharing, but it is still a cash incentive. Essentially, his position is don't use bad cash incentive strategies.
No, capitalism is a complex interaction of minimizing labour costs and maximizing revenue generation for a given resource.
Yeah, I over simplified that. With regards to selling labor, isn't it economically advantageous to sell your self to the highest bidder? Therefore companies should be offering their better employees more money in order to keep them from leaving.