Choice

So the Senator has weighed in on education:

"When a public system fails, repeatedly, to meet these minimal objectives, parents ask only for a choice in the education of their children." Some parents may opt for a better public school or a charter school; others for a private school. The point, said the Senator, is that "no entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents that choice and children that opportunity."

Since when does public money pay for a private choice? Since I include the federal government in his definition of "entrenched bureaucracy," I have to ask where does he get off saying that we should demand that schools with no accountability should be a choice over schools that his entrenched bureaucracy won't let go of? Charters are free of the rules and regulations that tie teachers’ hands in traditional public schools. How about we loosen some of those rules?

Where does choice fail?

(1) Who's the customer? If you take taxes from every person, regardless of whether they have children, then the taxpayer is the customer not the parent. If that money is sent to a public school then I can stand up in School Board meetings, Town Meetings, etc and have my say as to how that money is spent, or misspent. (New football stadium, anyone?) I can vote for or against that budget (and many towns around here did just that). I can run for the School Board and have an even more direct say. If you send my tax dollars to a charter, parochial, or other private school I cannot.

(2) "It's my money, dammit." I pay a couple thousand per year in property taxes (renters do too, it's just part of their rent). For that couple of thousand, I can have as many kids in the school system as my house will hold, whether my own, step-kids, adopted kids, foster kids, extended family. For just two kids, I would pay roughly 1/12th of their education costs in taxes every year. The trade-off is that I will pay until I die (minus the low-income exceptions built-in by my State). I figure I would break even after the 120th year of paying property taxes. I'll take that deal anytime.

(3) Taxes != tuition. I used to run a private school. We would typically figure out how much to charge someone based on income. Of course, we called the difference a "scholarship." When the tuition is listed at $15000, say, the real cost of educating a kid might be around $9000. If the kid is the last one, the costs might be as low as $3000. (It doesn't cost much if you can just slide him into classes without hiring a new teacher).

If a family can pay $5000, the scholarship has to be "$10000." The school collects $5000 and figures that $4000 can be scrounged from donations and sources (i.e., other tuitions), won't break the bank and the kid is a good one.

New calculation runs this way: family can pay $5000, voucher is $7500, therefore scholarship is "$2500." The school now is receiving $12500 for a kid whose education costs less than that. Raise your hand if you think that the schools are going to lower the family cost. Didn't think so either. All that vouchers really are is a giveaway to the private schools. I can tell you firsthand that every private school is quietly LOVING the voucher system.

(b) For those districts that negotiate set fees with a private school to be the local public school - those tuition fees are higher than the true cost of the education. We're talking $11000 per. That's guaranteed money. Do you realize how incredible that phrase is to a private school? And those fees are higher than you would have charged the family anyway. If you can get the star quarterback, that's even better. (This is how the local Catholic school competes athletically - skimming. Not too surprisingly, vouchers have become a hot issue around here. I wonder why?)

(4) Room. Take the five schools within this local area. The best one (if you can call it that) is already overcrowded to the point where the freshmen don't have lockers and sophomores have a lottery system. Where exactly are the "choosy" kids going to go?

(5) Driving. Again, take the five schools within this local area. The closest could be next door, obviously, but the farthest would be 15 miles away. Not a big deal here but take any part of this rural state besides the three larger cities and you'll find distances of 40 miles between schools. That means daily commutes of 1.5 hours. Not feasible.

(6) Expulsion. If the kid screws up, the charter school or private school can send him away - with much greater ease than local HS, which also has to take him back. True: local private school expelled the star football player (after the season) for swearing at the refs. By the time the next year came around, they offered him a spot again so he could come and play.


Sorry, Senator. I just don't agree with you.

Math Scores Show No Gap for Girls, Study Finds

By TAMAR LEWIN / NEW YORK TIMES
July 25, 2008

Three years after the president of Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, got into trouble for questioning women’s “intrinsic aptitude” for science and engineering — and 16 years after the talking Barbie doll proclaimed that “math class is tough” — a study paid for by the National Science Foundation has found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests.

Although boys in high school performed better than girls in math 20 years ago, the researchers found, that is no longer the case. The reason, they said, is simple: Girls used to take fewer advanced math courses than boys, but now they are taking just as many.

“Now that enrollment in advanced math courses is equalized, we don’t see gender differences in test performance,” said Marcia C. Linn of the University of California, Berkeley, a co-author of the study. “But people are surprised by these findings, which suggests to me that the stereotypes are still there.”

The findings, reported in the July 25 issue of Science magazine, are based on math scores from seven million students in 10 states, tested in accordance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The researchers looked at the average of the test scores of all students, the performance of the most gifted children and the ability to solve complex math problems. They found, in every category, that girls did as well as boys. (To their dismay, the researchers found that the tests in the 10 states did not include a single question requiring complex problem-solving, forcing them to use a national assessment test for that portion of their research.)

Janet Hyde, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who led the study, said the persistent stereotypes about girls and math had taken a toll.

“The stereotype that boys do better at math is still held widely by teachers and parents,” Dr. Hyde said. “And teachers and parents guide girls, giving them advice about what courses to take, what careers to pursue. I still hear anecdotes about guidance counselors steering girls away from engineering, telling them they won’t be able to do the math.”

Girls are still underrepresented in high school physics classes and, as noted by Dr. Summers, who resigned in 2006, in the highest levels of physics, chemistry and engineering, which require advanced math skills.

The study also analyzed the gender gap on the math section of the SAT. Rather than proving boys’ superior talent for math, the study found, the difference is probably attributable to a skewed pool of test takers. The SAT is taken primarily by seniors bound for college, and since more girls than boys go to college, about 100,000 more girls than boys take the test, including lower-achieving girls who bring down the girls’ average score.

On the ACT, another college entrance test, the study said, the gender gap in math scores disappeared in Colorado and Illinois after the states began requiring all students to take the test.

Myth of Fun and Interesting.

The kids line the hall, painting with tempera paint.
"What are you all doing?", I ask.
"English."
"Huh?"
"Storyboards. You know, what we think of when we read the story."
The cynic in me wants to ask if it wouldn't be better to "write" about it. After all, it is a sophomore English class.

"Can we go outside?" "This isn't fun." "I enjoy your class, but I hate math." "Do we have to work today." "You're going to make us think today, aren't you? Can't we have a Friday Fun Day?"
"When have we ever had a Friday Fun Day? and yes, of course I'd like you to think today. Isn't that the point?"

Curriculum meeting.
"We should have more practice with basic skills at the middle school level."
"Oh, you mean drill and kill."
"No, I mean practice."
"You mean drill and kill."
Is it mean of me to say that I'm not surprised she never participated in a team sport? Is not a math teacher? Has never taught anyone over 12? Has no idea of why it would be nice to have students who were comfortable with fractions, decimals, PEMDAS, and so on? I can teach algebra. What kills me is when I have to explain to them how to add 1/2 and 1/3.

Read the Myth of Fun and Interesting over at d-ed reckoning.

I especially like this line:
"In other words, interest is the reward of learning, not the motivation for learning."

Gee, ya think?

Rochester school board asks why kids saw social studies exam questions early
David Andreatta • Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle Staff writer
July 22, 2008

Backpedaling under pressure from its board, the Rochester School District announced Monday that it would investigate why thousands of seventh- and eighth-grade students were prepped for their final social studies exams last month with dozens of questions that appeared on the actual tests.

District officials had initially defended the practice of sharing exam questions with students in advance, calling it a legitimate form of test preparation. But that prompted Board of Education members and the teachers union to call for an investigation of the matter and the district's testing review protocol.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. You will never have 100% of your students succeed at anything. Threats, money, bribes, "rewards", 2014 be damned. If any school shows dramatic and sudden improvement then you have one of three things:

1. School cheated.
2. Students cheated.
3. Test is too easy.

People generally don't cheat on tests that don't count to them. That means students don't bother but teachers might. "A legitimate form of test preparation," my butt. Not even a good CYA.

Rochester school board asks why kids saw social studies exam questions early

David Andreatta • Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle Staff writer with lots of reader comments
July 22, 2008

Backpedaling under pressure from its board, the Rochester School District announced Monday that it would investigate why thousands of seventh- and eighth-grade students were prepped for their final social studies exams last month with dozens of questions that appeared on the actual tests.

District officials had initially defended the practice of sharing exam questions with students in advance, calling it a legitimate form of test preparation. But that prompted Board of Education members and the teachers union to call for an investigation of the matter and the district's testing review protocol.

Marilynn Patterson-Grant, the deputy superintendent for instruction, acknowledged in a statement Monday that the matter warranted examination.

"This issue illustrates the need for a critical examination of our current practices and policies around student assessments, and for a system of accountability at all levels and across all subject areas," Patterson-Grant said.

"The (district) will launch an immediate investigation of the development and administration of the seventh- and eighth-grade social studies assessments and review materials, and take appropriate action."

The investigation came after the controversial test-prep method and the district's defense were first reported in the Democrat and Chronicle on Sunday and as Board of Education commissioners demanded action.

"I obviously want to get the full story on exactly what went down," said school board President Malik Evans, who called for an investigation earlier in the day.

"The Board of Education takes the integrity of student assessments and protocols very seriously."

Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard is on his honeymoon and could not be reached for comment. He is expected to return at the end of the month.

The disclosed multiple-choice questions and their answers were printed in review materials produced by Paul Lampe, the district's director of social studies, who also approved the exams.

The reviews included all 40 multiple-choice questions on the eighth-grade exam and 24 of the 40 on the seventh-grade test. The questions were each worth one point, and the exams were each worth 100 points. The exams accounted for 25 percent of the students' final grades in the courses.

Lampe previously said he had intended to scramble the review questions and their answers, which appeared in the same sequence in the reviews as on the tests, but he defended introducing students to the questions beforehand.

His response did not satisfy school board Vice President Van Henri White, who called the stance "a mistake at best, and at worst a serious error in academic judgment."

"The problem with that response is that even the scrambling of questions and answers doesn't ensure that our children are anything but good memorizers," White said. "I want reassurances going forward that everyone views these tests, high-stakes or low-stakes, as being honest."

District officials could not say how many of the 4,329 students who took the exams were prepped with the review materials, which were intended to be presented in class by teachers using a slide show produced with PowerPoint software.

The study guides were not meant to be taken home by students, and it is unclear how many students, if any, were given hard copies of the slide show.

Some board members expressed concern that the district's initial apparent indifference to the matter suggested that similar forms of test preparation are ubiquitous.

"My concern is whether this is more widespread and what it says about the cultural malaise that the district suffers from," said board member Thomas Brennan.

"If it is more widespread, I think people should lose their jobs over this."

The district requires seventh- and eighth-graders to take exams in four subject areas: English, math, science and social studies.

Because only the English and math exams are used to determine whether students should be promoted to the next grade, invalidating the social studies exams wouldn't affect students.

The passing rate for the social studies exam was 50 percent in the seventh grade, up 6 percentage points from last year, and 56 percent in the eighth grade, an increase of 5 percentage points from a year ago.

"The district has to get to the bottom of this, determine what happened, and announce what measure they have taken to ensure that it won't happen again," said Rochester Teachers Association President Adam Urbanski. "I think the credibility of the district is at stake."

Discipline in the Touchy-Feely Nation

I ran across the following article reposted here for reference and I had to laugh.
So she made one visit to a middle school class a year ago. She watched one student get disciplined (maybe - she has no idea what happened in that VP's office) and now she's an expert? When are we going to learn?

Ms. Steiny claims that the "kinder, gentler, more supportive strategies" will be an improvement but can't seem to mention any of them, or how they might have made a difference in the one discipline situation she witnessed. She doesn't take any time to demonstrate even a hypothetical. All she has is "factory-model", "die-press discipline", "circumstances, relationships and feelings don't matter" and "retribution."

Not much of an argument, if you ask me.

I especially like the principal who, having tested this in middle school, is now confidently applying it to the high school because everyone knows the two groups of people are identical and will respond in the same ways. I can even hear the rationales later ... "Of course this is working. We don't have nearly as many detentions or suspensions as we used to." (Because they banned them?)

Ms. Steiny will be happy, too, because the school will be "safer". Why? Because they only track detentions, suspension and "hard numbers." The problems will still occur but since detentions and suspensions are no longer listed in Admin Plus, the school will be considered a happier and safer place. Information Works! will have lots of happy and safe little zeroes to report on their happy and safe little website.

Old method: someone punches your kid = suspension.
New method: someone punches your kid = talking-to in a supportive way.

I'd enjoy hearing that explanation to the parents. "He's got a tough life." "So do we. Why are you letting him punch my kid?"

Life goes on. and so does school reform.

Factory-model discipline leaves many troubled students behind

Julia Steiny / Providence (RI) Journal
July 20, 2008

A bit over a year ago, I shadowed an 8th-grader in her urban middle school, from the early morning rush into homeroom to the end of her last class. We were only a few minutes into the first class when she poked me and pointed to a boy who was up, moving about, chatting up other kids.

She whispered, “He’s in a group home and he’ll never last. He’ll get kicked out before the bell.” The boy wore a T-shirt with a big skull and cross-bones, as if he himself were rat poison and the shirt his product warning.

The students were supposed to be writing answers to questions about a short story, so the teacher nudged the restless boy back to his work. He would settle momentarily, only to be up again as soon as the teacher’s back was turned. He energized another shirker who had been sitting stone still and staring forward. When I asked why the stone-still boy wasn’t doing his work, the teacher sighed and said he was taking it easy on the kid because the boy had just suffered a very low blow in his life.

Eventually the two boys caused enough disruption that the group-home boy was sent to the principal’s office. “See?” said my eighth-grade sidekick, pleased to be right.

So every time this troubled boy came to school, he was quickly packed off to the vice principal’s office to be disciplined for being disruptive. Granted, he can’t be allowed to disrupt the class. But traditional secondary schools have very limited, punitive tools for dealing with wrongdoing. A good portion of any vice principal’s job is to enforce the school’s code of conduct. The code holds rule-breakers accountable for misbehavior by prescribing negative conditioning — suspension, detention, having privileges taken away — to discourage the offender from repeating the bad behavior.

In general, students who start getting punished, keep getting punished. Punishment does nothing to reengage the kids with the school’s community. If anything, it further turns the kid off from school.

Fran Gallo, the superintendent in Central Falls, just replaced the high school’s code of conduct. She gave me a copy of the old one as a specimen of these common, but ineffective documents.

Central Falls’ middle school had already switched to kinder, gentler, more supportive strategies, because its objective is to keep the kids in school where they can be taught how to behave properly, while learning English and science. As a result of these strategies, both discipline and test scores are much improved. The high school will now follow suit.

Like most school codes, the old Central Falls document describes the offenses broadly, then prescribes consequences for first, second and third offenses with mathematical precision. It’s all laid out in an easy-to-use grid.

The group-home boy’s disruption would be categorized under “insubordination/disrespect,” 1 of the 39 infractions you’ll find on the Information Works! Web pages: ( www.infoworks.ride.uri.edu/2008 ). For a first offense, the boy would get one or two hours of in-school detention. His second offense would trigger a call to the home, a day of “alternative learning” — a form of detention — and 15 days of revoked privileges, such as watching or participating in sports, or going to clubs or afterschool activities. The third offense would be a one- to three-day suspension out of school, 30 days of suspended privileges and sundry other unpleasantries.

This is die-press discipline, appropriate to a factory-model school. Circumstances, relationships and feelings don’t matter in schools modeled after the efficient manufacturing techniques at the turn of the last century. Most American public secondary schools are organized as factory-model schools. So if the kid is not cooperating with the demands of learning on the educational assembly line, automatic consequences result. It’s just mechanical. If you do X, the discipline die press will automatically clamp down on you with Y. If you do it again, you’ll get Z.

If you don’t turn in your homework so many times, you go to detention. If you skip detention, you get two detentions. If you skip enough detention, you’ll be suspended. InformationWorks! 2008 reports that Rhode Island middle-school kids were suspended for skipping detention 1,133 times, 4,013 times at the high schools. It doesn’t say how many days of school the kids missed.

At one Providence middle school the rate of suspensions is 200.2 per 100 kids, meaning that on average every 1 of the 1,163 kids in that school is suspended twice. (In fact, only 330 students were actually involved in any suspension.)

Die-press discipline is easy on the adults because no one has to bother to dig into what’s going on with the kid. And it relieves the school from facing the fact that some misbehavior is a result of tedious classes. Die-press discipline is considered to be fair because it applies to everyone equally, and everyone knows what the rules are ahead of time.

These codes of conduct go home with a letter that must be signed by the parents confirming that they read the rules and are warned of the consequences. Our adversarial, litigious society has taught parents to come in screaming about their rights when they feel their kid is singled out for punishment.

Actually, a sharp rap on the wrists does straighten out those students who have strong home support and a desire to be back in the good graces of a community they believe cares for them. But even these students resent their punishers and can start to resent school in the bargain. Punishment will produce some compliance, but always at a cost.

As for the “bad” kids, like our group-home boy, traditional school discipline techniques teach that the community, the school, doesn’t like him. If you do things our way, then maybe we’ll be nice to you. If not, we’re within our rights to be mean as snakes.

This is not discipline. This is retribution. It’s certainly not good teaching.

Julia Steiny, a former member of the Providence School Board, consults for government agencies and schools; she is co-director of Information Works!, Rhode Island’s school-accountability project.

Small Town Teaching

Or, Seeing your students in the paper, 5 years later ...

The highlights: in a restaurant at 5am, stole booze and a cash register (with $10 in change) then drank the booze and passed out in the kitchen. 0.17 BAC. Also stole jewelry from a local home a few days before.

felony burglary and misdemeanor petty larceny, petty larceny for jewelry
maximum penalty of more than 16 years behind bars and $2,500 in fines if convicted of the three charges.

I never had trouble with this kid, just not very motivated, not very likable or willing to be someone other than his history. He'd come in, do the minimum or less. Pass or fail, he didn't really care. Some kids are like that. He dropped out of my algebra 1 as I recall. Took it with another teacher. I'll have to look it up. 16 years seems a awfully long time for B&E, though.

Pay for Play Thinking

Referencing this article on a proposed reward system in CA.
Original article: Sacramento (CA) Bee

Let's look at the arguments.

1. You don't understand our genius - it's not really a bribe: "What we're really looking at is recognition and motivation and incentive to achieve."
2. Don't you want to support the children: "It's a way to help kids do better in school," she said. "Isn't that what we all want?"
3. It's free to you, someone else pays: Local businesses could be asked to donate prizes, such as tickets to movies, concerts, restaurants or sporting events.
4. Feels good to listen to the kids: sparked by a suggestion from a statewide student council group.
5. Throw in an attempt at a little guilt: Campuses and districts are ranked and judged by STAR scores, but not students.
6. More attempts at feel good - quote a kid: "That would be cool," said John Franz, 15. "I think that most kids would rather be rewarded for doing something good than punished if they don't do good," said Emma DeAmicis, 15. (Correcting the grammar in the quote didn't occur to anyone?)
   
7. Throw in some history that may or may not help your case but sounds insightful: years ago the state offered cash prizes to schools that excelled in testing. The plan backfired at some campuses, however, because pupils began demanding that bonus money be committed to a student activity in return for top effort, Wells said. "They came up with the bright idea of holding out for a good deal," he said. (Which proves this new plan will work, right?)
   
8. We already do this so lets make it state-wide: current state law does not specifically ban nonmonetary incentives, so some districts [reward] with medals, homework passes, yearbook discounts, student-store dollars or other prizes. But ... districts do not routinely offer rewards. Her legislation would remove any ambiguity and provide clear support, though no public funding.
9. Ending with the "it's really educational after all" ploy: some campuses in her Elk Grove district use STAR rewards as a vehicle for teaching about accountability and goal-setting.

Yep. It'll pass. That's too many silly reasons all at once for reason and logic to prevail. I guess I don't get it. I see problems.

1. Fairness. The good students know they can pass, and that they'll get rewards. The weak students can't pass, and know they'll get screwed. How fair is that? When the rewards come out, everyone puts themselves into in one group or the other. There's no gray here. That's bad news because you've defeated many of those who might succeed later. I remember a comment from one of mine after a honor roll assembly "It's like they're saying 'Here are all the smart people in the school and none of them are you.'"
   
2. Back-stabbing: If you have a limited number of prizes, then the back-stabbing gets vicious. Who is chosen for the prize? Is it a fair lottery and is any choice a fair one? I've seen this happen a lot: the administrator runs the program that randomly chooses, but doesn't like the result so he runs it again and again until the "right" people are "randomly" chosen. Of course, the more cynical ones don't bother choosing randomly.
   
3. A reward implies that student effort is the only factor. Really? How about teacher quality? How about test prep? How about curriculum? I think my own school has a lousy math curriculum - it "matched the state standards" but not the SAT I or II or ACT and didn't build for calculus here or STEM majors in college. Is that the kids fault? (Yes, I'm trying to change it, but those who chose it are convinced it's effective, despite the 16% passing rate on testing this year. Oh well. I've spoken up about it, put in some new courses as electives but in the long run -- Sign my paycheck and you get to call the shots, too.)
   
4. Education is it's own reward. Or, Bribes always backfire in the long run. I tell my students all the time, "If this isn't the education for you, change it. Consider a switch to the tech center. Don't take classes you can't stand. If you can't deal with me, then switch to one of the other teachers. We purposely set up the schedule so that's possible. This is your education - work with it. Learn what's fascinating." A reward switches that focus to the tangible. Children who start down this road then start needing all their rewards and incentives in tangible form. Remove the reward and the incentive is gone. Study Mythology because you want to, not because the teacher gives out M&Ms like the dog trainer at the fair.
   
5. Oh, yes, it costs money: Claiming that local businesses will give the money is foolish. Sure, some will at the start, but soon the rewards are "medals, yearbook discounts, student-store dollars." Who do you think covers that? Additionally, after the first year, then someone (on the payroll and on company time) has to go around to all the businesses asking for those donations, then collecting them and holding them, then writing the "thank you" notes and paying for the signage to thank them in public, then distributing them to the winners. The costs of this "free" stuff is probably more than buying it outright, not that THAT's any more useful.

Bill bets prizes would get kids to pass tests

By Jim Sanders - Sacramento (CA) Bee with lots of reader comments
July 21, 2008; MAIN NEWS section, Page A1


Want kids to score well on statewide tests?

Reward them.

Before they ask, "What's in it for me?" offer a prize for performance.

That's the thrust of a proposed state law passed this month by the Legislature and sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"What we're really looking at is recognition and motivation and incentive to achieve," said Sen. Elaine Alquist, a Santa Clara Democrat who proposed the measure.

Senate Bill 1709 would authorize and encourage school districts to provide nonmonetary incentives to middle and high school students for achievement or improvement on standardized tests.

Critics wonder if the concept feeds a selfish, me-first attitude.

"At some point, students need to be taught that every good deed does not require reward," said Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Coupal, whose group has taken no formal position on SB 1709, said he is leery of rewarding children simply for doing their duty.

"It reminds me of providing incentive pay for police officers to stay in physical shape – I mean, that should be part of the package, shouldn't it?" Coupal said.

Alquist characterized the incentives as recognition, not compensation.

"It's a way to help kids do better in school," she said. "Isn't that what we all want?"

SB 1709 initially proposed a special mark on a student's diploma and a mini-vacation from classes – up to three days – at the end of the school year.

Alquist later dropped the three-day break. Her bill now encourages school districts to develop nonmonetary incentives by soliciting ideas from students.

Local businesses could be asked to donate prizes, such as tickets to movies, concerts, restaurants or sporting events.

"I think the possibilities are endless," Alquist said.

SB 1709 passed the Legislature largely along party lines, with most Republicans opposed.

Schwarzenegger has not taken a position, nor have state teacher, administrator or school board groups.

Alquist's bill, sparked by a suggestion from a statewide student council group, presumes that many pupils don't take Standardized Testing and Reporting exams seriously because their grades and graduation are not affected.

Campuses and districts are ranked and judged by STAR scores, but not students.

Teenagers interviewed at McClatchy High School applauded the notion of prizes.

"That would be cool," said John Franz, 15.

"I think that most kids would rather be rewarded for doing something good than punished if they don't do good," said Emma DeAmicis, 15.

But Roger Fotuiaka, 14, said that offering prizes sounds like an attempt to "buy" cooperation.

Bob Wells, director of the Association of California School Administrators, noted that years ago the state offered cash prizes to schools that excelled in testing.

The plan backfired at some campuses, however, because pupils began demanding that bonus money be committed to a student activity in return for top effort, Wells said.

"They came up with the bright idea of holding out for a good deal," he said.

A legislative analysis of SB 1709 said current state law does not specifically ban nonmonetary incentives, so districts conceivably can offer them now – and some do, with medals, homework passes, yearbook discounts, student-store dollars or other prizes.

But Alquist said districts do not routinely offer rewards. Her legislation would remove any ambiguity and provide clear support, though no public funding.

Dave Gordon, head of the Sacramento County Office of Education, said that tangible prizes are "not inconsequential," but a better incentive might be to tie STAR scores to students' futures.

"Whatever we can do to make the tests more meaningful and have more consequences, I think that's a plus," Gordon said.

California State University uses scores from an ancillary exam, linked to STAR, to exempt high school students from remedial classes. Gordon said the concept should be expanded to community colleges.

State schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell would like to see STAR scores used as college entrance exams, spokeswoman Hilary McLean said.

O'Connell has taken no position on SB 1709, however. He believes that school districts know students well and are best-equipped to decide whether to offer prizes, McLean said.

"We think there are upsides and downsides," she said.

A system that rewards improvement and achievement, for example, might leave out students who try very hard but have little success, she said.

John Montgomery, assistant superintendent of the Roseville Joint Union High School District, said he would like to see STAR testing occur toward the end of courses and count toward grades.

Montgomery is wary of awarding prizes, however, calling them "artificial motivations."

"They've worked, I've seen them work," he said. "But in terms of integrity, I'm not so certain that that's where we want to be."

Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, said offering prizes does nothing to address social or economic reasons for poor test scores.

For teenagers who purposely fail, gifts don't necessarily change attitudes, he said.

"I think a lot of it is a breakdown in the popular authority that teachers represent," he said. "Building that back up is going to require more than just handing out M&Ms."

But Associate Superintendent Christina Penna said some campuses in her Elk Grove district use STAR rewards as a vehicle for teaching about accountability and goal-setting.

Before testing, students evaluate past scores, set a performance goal and discuss strategies for improvement, she said.

"We try to make it a self-reflective exercise for students to do better," she said.

LiveScience has this in an article about customer satisfaction:

And when math is involved, most of us can't cope. For example: See if you can calculate the total savings in the setup: 20 percent off the original price plus an additional 25 percent off the sale price. How much is that item marked down? If you said 45 percent off, then you're math skills are as pitiful as the 85 percent of college students who also got this wrong in a study last year by researchers at the University of Miami and the University of Minnesota.

Is it just me or did that "you're" jump out at you, too? But, it's okay. I don't DO English.
Update: Got fixed! They apparently read the comments on their articles.

Too funny