Sometimes, money doesn’t talk.
Another attempt by the city to improve student performance through cash payments has failed, much to the surprise of Mayor Bloomberg.
“I would have thought it would have had a bigger effect,” the mayor said, responding to findings that millions of dollars in bonuses paid to teachers over the last three years to boost student test scores didn’t do a thing to upgrade their underperforming schools.
The Rand Corp. had been hired by the city to study the impact of the $1,500 to $3,000 annual bonuses.
“Overall, the program had no effect on student achievement at any grade level,” it reported.
After going through more than $56 million, the city suspended payments in the three-year pilot project last January, pending Rand’s conclusions.
Researchers called the experiment a bust.
“Other research and theory suggest that for bonus programs to be effective in improving student performance, there must be a high level of understanding of the program and bonus criteria, educators must have ‘buy-in,’ and they need to view bonuses as large enough to motivate extra effort,” said Julie Marsh, the study’s lead author.
“These characteristics were lacking in many schools participating in the New York City program, and were a key reason why some educators said the program did not influence them to change their behavior.”
Last year, the city pulled the plug on another $50 million experiment, called “conditional cash transfers,” which was modeled on a successful program in Mexico that pays parents to take their kids to school, for health checkups and to engage in other behavior deemed beneficial to society.
The city’s version included payments when students passed state exams.
Despite the cash, there was little difference in outcomes between the paid students and a control group that didn’t get a cent.
The mayor argued there’s only one way to know if novel approaches are going to work — and that’s to try them.
“I think those things we should be more proud of — the fact that we have the courage to sit there and say we thought it was a good idea, didn’t work and we’re stopping it,” he said. “We’re not going to waste the public’s money.”