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                       MPS Plan Hires the Wrong Workers

    What is the single factor that could most enhance the performance of
    children in the Milwaukee Public Schools?  Our school superintendent,
    school board, and many Milwaukeans say we must improve facilities.  I
    say we must improve student motivation.

    Some seven years ago, I and my graduate students tutored two
    third-graders in the closet of a MPS school. One child was motivated
    the other, J, was not.  The motivated child made excellent progress.  
    Despite a student to teacher ratio of 1, J made little progress until
    we used a behavioral contract.  

    J's teacher helped us establish the contract with J and her mother.  J
    came to earn points in daily tutoring sessions by reading correctly and
    answering comprehension questions correctly.  J was given a sheet
    documenting her earnings so that J and her mother could enter the
    points into a "bank book" each evening at home.  Finally, J could
    withdraw points to purchase rewards such as money (one point was worth
    a penny), candy, toys, going to a restaurant for dinner, and the most
    valued activity: visiting grandparents.  With the contract in place,
    J's performance improved dramatically.

    Over the years we managed to tutor several handfuls of children.
    Almost all worked hard and progressed provided they were paid for
    learning. The weakest link in the system was not the children, but
    parents who violated the contract by not paying.

    There is nothing new about behavioral contracting with insufficiently
    motivated children. There are many studies which show that it works.  

    MPS is interested in contracting too.  It proposes to put numerous
    architects, engineers, carpenters, plumbers, and electricians under
    contract to construct facilities. Shouldn't it first be solving its
    serious student motivation problem by teaching behavioral contracting
    to all responsible parents with insufficiently motivated children?

    Of course, there are irresponsible parents and schools largely filled
    with insufficiently motivated children. The reward system used with J
    could be adapted for use with all the students in such schools.  For
    example, children could be tested daily, in two learning areas, with
    their scores determining level of reward: paid with tax dollars! An
    eighth grader might earn a dollar a day by performing well on such
    tests.

    Paying children for learning, however, is not a popular idea. At one
    time the vast majority of children learned without obvious extrinsic
    rewards when learning was supported in other ways. These supports
    included having a loving family or neighbors who enjoyed learning, who
    bestowed personal admiration for learning, who tutored children to
    enhance learning, or who were successful by virtue of learning.  Today,
    more children enter our public schools with less of these precious
    resources.

    Paying children for learning can provide requisite motivation.  Instead
    of educating Milwaukeans about the virtues of paying children for
    learning, however, MPS is educating us about the virtues of paying for
    buildings.

    Although other improvements should be made in our public schools, I
    doubt that there is another, single, practicable approach that could
    more enhance the quality of education.  Pay for learning promotes
    relations between work and reward characteristic of responsible adult
    life.  This work, unlike much adult work, will result in children
    acquiring new capabilities, values, and perspectives.

    MPS should have long ago presented a comprehensive plan to enhance
    student motivation instead of one to construct more buildings. On Feb.
    16 I will vote against the school facilities plan, because there are
    far more cost-effective ways to enhance learning.