Paying students for performance on standardized tests or for course grades does not increase achievement test scores in urban public schools¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2010 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Incentives for test scores in NYC (grades 4 and 7) and for course grades in Chicago (grade 9) yielded statistically zero and substantively small effects on math and reading achievement. → Roland G. Fryer 2010

Evidence¶

Roland G. Fryer 2010¶

Roland G. Fryer, Jr. (2010). Financial Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from Randomized Trials. NBER Working Paper No. 15898. http://www.nber.org/papers/w15898

q3 · i? · causal · r2

School-level randomized trials in NYC (fourth and seventh graders paid for interim assessment performance) and Chicago (ninth graders paid for grades in five core courses). The article reports the impact is "statistically zero and substantively small in all specifications."

"The impact of offering incentives to students for test scores or grades is statistically zero and substantively small in all specifications."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Paying ninth graders for course grades increases GPA but not achievement test scores in Chicago — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Paying second-grade students to read books increases reading comprehension by roughly 0.18–0.25 standard deviations in Dallas — related
• After three years of Teacher Incentive Fund implementation, pay-for-performance bonuses had small positive impacts on student math and reading achievement in ten evaluation districts — related
• Paying middle-school students for attendance, behavior, uniforms, and homework yields marginally significant reading gains and non-significant math gains in Washington, DC — related
• Input-based incentives produce achievement gains at lower cost than major education reforms of recent decades — related