Liam implicitly made a point in his post yesterday that's worth making explicit. Namely, that even the most rigorous research studies won't answer many of the fundamental questions in education, or any field, because some of those questions come down to values. Here's a corollary: we can't just ask if something "works," we also have to ask whether it's "right." That's an important reminder to those of us who like to talk about giving schools autonomy as long as they get results. "Accountability-for-autonomy" is shorthand, actually; the full tag line should be "do whatever works to get strong results, within the bounds of ethical practice."
That sentiment is why even corporations (most at least) worry about corporate "values," not just bottom-line objectives. They smartly vest authority in ground-level managers to make important decisions, and hold them accountable for getting results. But they limit these leaders' actions by clarifying the lines they may not cross.
Likewise in education: we want schools to boost student learning on standardized tests, but we don't give them carte blanche. Cheating is of course out of bounds, but so should be short-sighted practices like stripping all subjects but reading and math from the curriculum, or reducing academic instruction to nothing more than test-prep. We want principals to boost student achievement, but to do so within the bounds of ethical practice.
Liam hints at this reasoning to argue against pay-for-performance programs (the kind that reward children, not teachers, for higher test scores). Stafford notes that Washington, D.C., is about to experiment with such a program too. According to Liam,
The government should not institute programs that pay students in return for good grades, no matter what the research finds.... Regardless whether you??think the??concept screwy, as I do, or whether you??believe it's a scrumptious idea, it remains indisputable that a school that rewards monetarily those 11-year-olds who ace their spelling??exams is??undertaking a controversial??action--one in many ways tangential to the school's fundamental purposes (a strong argument holds that??paying kids in fact??undermines those purposes)--over which reasonable people??certainly will??have reasonable ethical disagreements.??Why the government inserts itself into such situations is beyond me.
Well. Either paying students is ethical, or it's not. If government refuses to "insert" itself into all "controversial" actions, government would be involved in very little. Maybe Liam's libertarian sentiments are shining through. I would argue that it is ethical to pay students for getting good grades or raising their test scores. Many children work hard at their studies because they want the "reward" of good grades--intangible though it may be. It strikes me as not much different--and no less ethical--to experiment with rewards that are more earthly, to see if these can motivate children for whom the intangibles are less compelling.
But Liam's larger point--implicit though it may have been--is one we should remember every day. To be worthy of support, public policies shouldn't just "work," they should also be "good."
