Improving America's Schools - Letter #2, Part 1 (Rewarding Success)

The following post is based on thoughts related to:

Letters to the Editor that the NY Times has recently received concerning public schools. The link is: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/opinion/l17educ.html?emc=eta1

Joanne Yatvin writes, “… to reward school success, it (the government) should split those rewards among all those who have contributed: parents; the whole school faculty, including the principal; and the students themselves.”

My opinion differs from Ms. Yatvin. In regards to rewarding school success, I am not a big proponent of individual rewards. I believe that team based incentives work best in schools. I also believe the incentives should be in the form of flexibility to make expenditures that benefit the campus. Some examples include training, tools, resources and small capital projects that are selected by the entire staff and benefit the campus as a whole. The staff should be rewarded for working smart and efficient by being given the opportunity to work even more smart and more efficiently.

There is no need to extrinsically reward parents, their children performing at high levels is all the reward they want and need. As for rewarding students, student motivation is a direct reflection of staff motivation. Student who care about results have teachers who care about results. Students who don’t care about results have teachers who don’t believe that their students are capable of performing.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...