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Experiment: Pay students to tackle learning loss

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Re: Experiment: Pay students to tackle learning loss

#31

Post by dataflow »

anitil wrote: post #20
Pasorrijer wrote: post #17

Only semi related, but when Dolly Parton noticed that her home town had 30%+ highschool dropout rates, she created the buddy program. Pair with a friend, and if you both graduate, you both get $500. Drop out rate dropped to 6%. Yeah incentives can be gamed... But if in the process of gaming, the students achieve the outcome, does it really matter? https://dollyparton.com/imagination_library/buddy-program/15...

It's hard for me to understand how such a small amount could have such a meaningful impact on someone's life. I suppose that says more about me though. Edit: Dolly _personally handed them the cheque_! I could see that being more of a motivation than the cash itself Edit 2: I would highly recommend listening to "Dolly Parton's America" - https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/dolly-partons-america

$500 to a high school student can mean a lot. Source: have been a high school student.

Re: Experiment: Pay students to tackle learning loss

#32

Post by barry-cotter »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #27

As it stands, existing school is child jail. You didn't vote for the people telling you what you can and can't do, and they aren't paying you to be there either. The authority of the "authority figures" isn't actually built on any rational principle. If it weren't for the fact that the easiest personal option is to just wait out the clock and never look back, surely large swaths of people held in this system would op…

> The authority of the "authority figures" isn't actually built on any rational principle.

If you don’t come to school we’ll put your parents in jail is an eminently rational principle.

To defend school for a moment it’s one of the least awful places many children experience on a regular basis. The adults don’t really care but they don’t hate the children. They’re not going to hit them. It’s a reasonable temperature. They often get food. I was horrified hearing one of my colleagues describe teaching in the UK. It mostly sounded like being an ersatz social worker. But it’s not like education is first or second in school’s priorities. Child minding is higher, why not social work?

Re: Experiment: Pay students to tackle learning loss

#33

Post by barry-cotter »

oofnik wrote: post #16

This sounds like a fantastic way to smother creativity and imagination. Anybody who has ever worked on open source projects should know that incentives are not always additive. https://commoncausefoundation.org/michael-sandel-on-the-corr...

This would be a great deal more impressive if most contributors to the largest and most subsection OSS projects weren’t paid.

Re: Experiment: Pay students to tackle learning loss

#34

Post by pydry »

Pasorrijer wrote: post #17

Only semi related, but when Dolly Parton noticed that her home town had 30%+ highschool dropout rates, she created the buddy program. Pair with a friend, and if you both graduate, you both get $500. Drop out rate dropped to 6%. Yeah incentives can be gamed... But if in the process of gaming, the students achieve the outcome, does it really matter? https://dollyparton.com/imagination_library/buddy-program/15...

This is really clever.

Re: Experiment: Pay students to tackle learning loss

#35

Post by calebkaiser »

anitil wrote: post #20
Pasorrijer wrote: post #17

Only semi related, but when Dolly Parton noticed that her home town had 30%+ highschool dropout rates, she created the buddy program. Pair with a friend, and if you both graduate, you both get $500. Drop out rate dropped to 6%. Yeah incentives can be gamed... But if in the process of gaming, the students achieve the outcome, does it really matter? https://dollyparton.com/imagination_library/buddy-program/15...

It's hard for me to understand how such a small amount could have such a meaningful impact on someone's life. I suppose that says more about me though. Edit: Dolly _personally handed them the cheque_! I could see that being more of a motivation than the cash itself Edit 2: I would highly recommend listening to "Dolly Parton's America" - https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/dolly-partons-america

I appreciate the way you phrased this. In my experience, the nature of poverty in Appalachia is alien to many people (the numbers are so low, and the region is so isolated in many ways, there are many aspects of it that are unintuitive and jarring at first glance.)

Since you seem curious about poverty in Appalachia, I thought this bit of data might be interesting:

Sevierville, where Dolly Parton is from, has an average individual income of about $23,000 in 2022–which is actually a significant increase compared to just a few years ago. When you adjust for inflation and consider that high schoolers have relatively lower earning potential, the weight of $500 makes more sense.

Source: https://datacommons.org/place/geoId/4767120

Re: Experiment: Pay students to tackle learning loss

#36

Post by barry-cotter »

josh_fyi wrote: post #22
seydor wrote: post #21

I think all students should be paid, it s entirety logical. It would massively rearrange education, from school to university

Since richer students tend to have more educational progress, this would be a great way to fund the rich ;-)

If you pay for effort, not achievement, as in the study under discussion there would be higher motivation among the less well off.

Re: Experiment: Pay students to tackle learning loss

#37

Post by carlmr »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #27

As it stands, existing school is child jail. You didn't vote for the people telling you what you can and can't do, and they aren't paying you to be there either. The authority of the "authority figures" isn't actually built on any rational principle. If it weren't for the fact that the easiest personal option is to just wait out the clock and never look back, surely large swaths of people held in this system would op…

>Take their time, pay them for it.

We're having issues that a lot of children don't receive education because they can't pay for it. Education is a privilege that many never experience in the world.

Would you rather they work in a coal-mine and get paid for their time?

Re: Experiment: Pay students to tackle learning loss

#38

Post by IIAOPSW »

barry-cotter wrote: post #32
IIAOPSW wrote: post #27

As it stands, existing school is child jail. You didn't vote for the people telling you what you can and can't do, and they aren't paying you to be there either. The authority of the "authority figures" isn't actually built on any rational principle. If it weren't for the fact that the easiest personal option is to just wait out the clock and never look back, surely large swaths of people held in this system would op…

> The authority of the "authority figures" isn't actually built on any rational principle. If you don’t come to school we’ll put your parents in jail is an eminently rational principle. To defend school for a moment it’s one of the least awful places many children experience on a regular basis. The adults don’t really care but they don’t hate the children. They’re not going to hit them. It’s a reasonable temperature.…

>If you don’t come to school we’ll put your parents in jail is an eminently rational principle.

That's not a principle, that's a mugging.

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