Money-Back Schools: Unclear Balance Sheet

Money-Back Schools: Unclear Balance Sheet Why can't taxpayers get their money back if kids don't learn in school? For the past two years, the educational systems of 30 U.S. cities have been using various forms of just such profit-and-loss incentives. Under the terms of "performance contracting," private companies--sometimes textbook publishers, sometimes groups of psychologists and teachers--take over public classrooms, try whatever teaching methods they like, and are rigidly judged on the results (TIME, Aug. 24, 1970). For children who do well, the firms get bonuses; for students whose performance does not rise to the national level, the firms must give refunds to the school boards. Last week test scores for the most comprehensive contract, in Gary, Ind., confirmed preliminary reports from other schools and showed that the technique can produce educational gains.

Gary needed them. A year ago, three out of every four of the 798 students in Banneker elementary school were reading below the national average for their grade. The pupils were all black and mostly from poor families. "We are at rock bottom," admitted Alfonso D. Holliday II, a black physician who headed the city's school board. At Holliday's prodding, the board turned over the entire school for three years to Behavioral Research Laboratories, a firm based in Menlo Park, Calif.

Assembly Line. Behavioral Research sent Donald Kendrick, a former Lockheed systems analyst, to Gary as director of the school. "We want a job done," he announced, likening education to the assembly line. "One fellow puts in the nuts, you put in the bolts, and the product comes out." Kendrick transferred ten teachers, and used their salaries to augment his staff with 28 teacher's aides.

Classifications by grade were abolished; in reading and math, students used "programmed" workbooks (published chiefly by B.R.L.) that allowed them to work independently. One difference was noted by eleven-year-old Cheryl Garner, who transferred to Banneker: "In the other school, it seemed we always learned what I already knew." Teachers could earn up to $3,000 extra during the year for staying after class to take training classes or to develop new curriculums. Although only sixth-grade performance is considered in computing B.R.L.'s fees, at year's end all students took standard tests given by an outside consulting firm that B.R.L. helped select.

Host of Questions. Last week's tabulation of the test scores showed that nearly 73% of the children had reached or exceeded national levels in reading or math. But the gains were spotty. Among sixth-graders, 69% reached the average level in math but only 40% got there in reading. As a result, the firm had to refund $75,000 to the school system. Still, Gary Superintendent Gordon L. McAndrew pronounced the overall results "encouraging."

The evaluation leaves a host of questions. Any parents who wanted to transfer their children to another city school were allowed to do so before the experiment began. The teachers were volunteers too. Thus the school may have benefited from an enthusiasm that pupils and teachers in ordinary schools would not share. The report did not assess the "Hawthorne effect,"* which guarantees the initial success of most sociological experiments because people react favorably when attention in any form is paid to them. Most important, the report provided no factual assessment of how much the school had emphasized testing.

Narrow Focus. In one telling comment, the evaluators pointed out that students had done little more than reading and math for the first four months; B.R.L. did not introduce social studies and science until November and waited to begin art, music and physical education until January. The accusation that performance contracts focus too narrowly on subjects that show up well on tests has dogged other experiments as well.

Though performance contracts have been initially successful in Philadelphia, Dallas and El Cajon, Calif., they have failed to boost achievement substantially in New York City, rural Virginia, and Texarkana, Ark. Two weeks ago, a financial study done for the Federal Office of Economic Opportunity suggested that even if contract teaching produces better results than regular instruction, it may be too expensive for the hard-pressed city school systems that need it most. According to a recent survey, more than two-thirds of the nation's school board members are interested in giving money-back schooling a try.

* Named for experiments in improving worker efficiency in the Hawthorne Works, a Western Electric plant outside Chicago. Researchers found that even employees in control groups, in which nothing changed, became more efficient simply because they began to feel important.

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