It’s the oldest trick in the elementary school classroom management book: using positive reinforcement to get children to behave in the hope of earning a reward or recognition. When it’s time to clean up before lunch the teacher says, “Let’s see who’s ready to line up first. I’m looking to see who has their desk cleaned up and is sitting up nicely.” Suddenly 25 kids are racing to sit up straight with their hands folded on their spotless desks. Works like a charm on seven-year-olds.
State legislatures, too.
President Obama’s education speech in Wisconsin reinforced the criteria the Adminstration wants to see in order for states to qualify for a piece of the $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” fund. What’s remarkable, however, is how much change in behavior is occurring in states just hoping for a reward. Like a first grade teacher, the President is essentially looking across the country and asking, “Who wants to be my special helper? I’m looking for states that are doing the right thing and making good choices!”
“Oh, I like the way California is linking teachers and test scores! You too, Indiana and Wisconsin! What an excellent job you’re doing! Uh-oh, Nevada is definitely not ready! Let’s see who else is doing the right thing? Oh, look! Illinois and Tennessee must really want Race to the Top money. Look how they have lifted their charter caps! Louisiana is ready! Delaware is ready! New York? Are you making good choices? Let me see…”
“The administration has done a good job of having a lot of states make a long-odds bet that they’re going to win Race to the Top funds, so they’ve shaped their behavior a lot in advance of a single dollar being awarded,” Russ Whitehurst, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution tells the Christian Science Monitor. “Most of what the administration is going to get [in terms of reform] it will get before the competition is actually completed.”
There must be some very shrewd former teachers at the DOE.
As a Californian, I wish there had been some actual, sensible discussion in the legislature of the legal changes that had to be made to be eligible for RTTT, not just “ooh money, we’re broke, we’ll do whatever you ask if we might get money.”
As a California teacher, I can’t wait to start dumping our energy into yet another black hole. Thank you, Arne Duncan.
I remain unsurprised by single humans or groups of humans responding to operant conditioning.