The Next Level

A recent Time Magazine article provided an overview of a recent program piloted in Chicago, Dallas, New York City, and Washington DC. This program, called "Capital Gains" in Washington DC, is the brain child of Harvard economist Roland Fryer Jr. When I mention that our tutors will be compensated, people often compare our work to that of Dr. Fryer. 

One caveat: I would state that the main difference is that we provide compensation in exchange for additional time and effort - it does not fall within the typical school day. The bonuses we provide are related to job performance and the improved qualifications of our tutors.

I would like to speak specifically to three issues presented in the article. I feel that they are relevant to Reach, Inc.'s work as well.

1) It is absolutely true that the education sector needs to do more research and development work. Our fear of failure often prevents us from trying to new approaches. Because we refuse to do this research, reform often looks very similar to existing approaches and programs.

2) The article talks about rewarding factors over which children have some control. We address this in two ways. First, our incentives are connected to a number of factors: attendance, timeliness, GPA, standardized test scores, tutor reading improvement, student reading improvement, and program compliance. All of our tutors will do better in some areas than others; however, the diversity provides all tutors with the ability to earn incentives. Second, we can not look at any child's ability as static. Our entire incentive system focuses on improvement rather than mastery, so we are always pushing our kids to take the next step. If our training program is working effectively, then our tutors will gain increasing control over the factors we reward. In the beginning, they can focus on showing up on time each day; however, with training, our tutors will gain the capacity to begin focusing on improving their grades.

3) When talking about incentives, detractors often site research stating that extrinsic motivation rarely works long term. This is true. We do know, however, that intrinsic motivation is effective in the long term. In this article, representatives from KIPP talk about the need to "start where they are." Extrinsic motivators can, and do, work to promote initial efforts. When children receive the motivator, it is then up to the adults to make that transition from extrinsic to intrinsic. Many of the students Reach will work with have never experienced academic success. When incentives encourage our students experience success for the first time, it is up to us be vocal about the pride we feel in their success. It is through our responses that these extrinsic motivators can produce intrinsic motivation.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark