A Little Freakonomics Experiment

Disclaimer: No one was hurt, experiencing flashbacks, or even will know I tried this out all week. After finishing Superfreakonomics over the weekend I decided that exam week would be a fun way to try out my own experiment. I convinced the AP English 11 teacher to use the book in class and ever since, wanted to run my own test that would benefit ME!

No worries, you don't need to call the State Board as I adhered to the same 150 page testing manual that includes: no knitting while proctoring exams. Seriously while I am really ready to get rid of some of them, I wouldn't poke an eye out.... that would ruin my experiment.

The Background- NC requires students to take End of Course tests for most core subjects in high school. Five of these tests must be passed to graduate. Mine is one of the five. Every year they change some guidelines of the test so each year kids that are repeating are grandfathered in with different requirements that you must remember. Enjoying the level of bureaucracy yet? There is pressure to move kids that have failed before on to pass the test as there is nothing like an 18 year old freshman (other than to have that 18 year old freshman scare the crap out of the rest of the class to behave, been there done that.)

Knowing that I have a whole glut of these kids in one class that are repeating, this was my catalyst to try this experiment. Also, after giving the practice exam I relized two things. The repeating kids being within 10-20 points of the score needing to pass. My Honors kids were only 3-5 questions away from not passing as they came in overconfident. Again, it doesn't matter if you pass the class you MUST pass the test to move on. (Note there is a ridiculous portfolio review for students who DO pass the class but not the test and EVERY year I have to sit though a long meeting with each student, crying parents, administrators, and district office personnel to decide if they will pass)

My bottom line is to have as many kids pass the first time out the door. Plus as someone who has been told before in a job interview, "if you could get those kids to pass at School X, then we would expect the same here." I have really good scores going back to the year I student taught. Not to blow my own horn but in education believe me no one will recognize you unless you are a CRAPPY teacher they are trying to can, good teachers get rewarded with AP classes and Senior Elective on Fedual Japan (TRUE). My scores tend to scale 10-20% higher than state average across the board and on economics goals that number often is close to 30% higher than state average.

If you were to come to my class most days you would see that I have a No Excuses, Take No Prisoners approach. If you want to sleep no luck, you will be leading the 7 Steps for Running for Election Dance Off. I actually sprinkle glitter (magic knowledge dust on big test days. I lead off a bureaucracy agency rap off proving if this no talent ass clown can do it, you can too.

So back to Freakonomics. While the sequel was nothing like the original in comparison the one thing I took away was that people do things for incentive. No duh? Hello sheer bribery with my child, students, my spouse, even myself. But since this is the last go round I decided that on the chance I am back next year (or the following year) that why not go out on a bang, plus I seriously don't want to have to sit through more waiver hearings all next week, and I want to come back and teach THIS class not freshman level World Studies which is seriously like running an nuthouse, and yes due to sheer numbers you always get a couple of sections even if you specialize in another class. SO... here was my plan.

Every year the state sets a new cut score with -1 Standard Deviation for what is passing. I used to write questions for the state test so I am privy to that magical number range they will consider. This info has slowly leaked out to teachers who want to search the state boards website archives too, so it's not a state secret. What sucks here is that the score is often higher like a 73 than is passing the class like a 70 giving most students who are passing sitting the fence an over inflated feel that if they are passing the class they will also pass the test.
Even honors students get cocky and blow it off only to squeak by as the state requires the test to count 25% of a final grade. I typically have Honors students with 85 ave. and Regular level with a 70 coming into the test consistently over the past years.

So after running the practice test last week and analyzing the data, I decided to formulate an experiment telling students cut score to pass the test was 5 points higher than it actually was for honors students and 3 points lower for the regular level. So failing students had even more of an incentive to pass thinking that they had a chance in hell to pass if they could just pull out a few more questions and honors knew that the 2-3 questions they missed could put passing in jeopardy. I also played off the fact that since I have worked on this test, I know the "magic number" and even wrote on the board on Exam Day, "Remember the Score to be Out the Door." Exam grades are not numeric, just pass/fail so I also controlled for the fact that they will never know the final grade.

The Incentive for Me- Fewer last chance grade conferences with crying parents, get grades finished sooner so I can leave early next week, leave after baby with top grades so that I come back in a good position to inherit my old classes even if I take the whole year off, fewer angry students/parent emails, and oh yeah more kids pass so they don't have to take up space next semester in over loaded spring classes.

Quadruple win with incentive for me as the prize of most importance. Will post on Friday the stats if the lying for incentive scheme worked. Damn, should this work, should have done 10 years ago.