Since it's a subject of economics (or freakonomics, whatever the difference is) and it involves education, I'm sure you can guess that it involves incentive-based learning. The latest study repeats what we already know is true - when you give students rewards, they perform a task better - but it's the Atlantic editor's conclusion that really tears me up. Just look at the headline:

Look at the cute little kids! Don't they just look like the kinds of children eager to wake up every morning to go to school and... wait a second, what's that tagline?

"The case for putting $20 bills on the desk of every standardized test taker."

Can I stop here? Can we all stop here, please?

Incentives work. We know this. It's human nature. We also know that in many cases, it works insofar as you get a certain behavior to exhibit itself but no long-lasting habit is formed. Think about your current jobs, with their paychecks and perks. It's great, right? If I told you that in two weeks, the paychecks would stop coming and you'd have to pay for your own dental insurance, but still keep working for me, would you keep that job? Maybe for a day or two, but then it'd eat away at you that you're volunteering to do a job that you got paid handsomely for just days before.

So tell me, Derek Thompson, business editor for The Atlantic... If my goal as a 2nd or 3rd grade teacher is to take a bright young child and build a lifetime love for learning, do you really think I should give them all $80/hour to try to do better on a test?

My (least) favorite part is when Derek points out one of public education's really troubling issues. Hold on tight, everyone, it's a doozie:

The trouble for many schools is that the incentive structure is set up so that teachers focus more than their students on standardized tests.

Don't bother checking to see that you read it correctly. The problem with our schools and their current incentive-based learning structures (which isn't even as awful as it could be) are that they focus too much on the students, not on the tests.

Derek, I thought you were kidding. I really, really, REALLY wanted this to be a joke. But I got all the way to the end of your article and this was all that I found:

... it's here, in under-served school districts, where the lessons of attention might be the most lucrative for the country. If we can buy their attention today, we'll all be richer for it.

I don't know about all of the readers of this blog, but I can assure you, Derek Thompson, that I did not choose to become a teacher so that I could hand out dollar bills to 3rd graders, beg them to score high on a standardized-test, and then wait patiently for the results to come back so that we can prove to the rest of the world that we've succeeded at educating the future generations of America.

Stick to real economics, and let us find innovative ways to raise student achievement without your filthy dollar bills.

The main lesson to be taken from this story is as follows: if you're paying $32,000 a year to send your child to a school created by members of a Vegas entertainment group known for the ground-breaking idea to cover themselves from head to toe in blue paint... you shouldn't be surprised when your child fails to gain anything from their time spent there.

If you're paying all that money and your children's principals are trained in anything but education, and those school administrators don't believe in the importance of books and structured classroom time (don't jump to any conclusions, I'm simply stating that 6-7 hours of "play time!" is not good for anyone)... you shouldn't be surprised when they can't read.

As with everything in life these days, there exists a wide spectrum of ways to solve every problem. Just try to avoid the extremes. No one expects you to send your child to a school where they will spend 7 hours circling answers on a multiple-choice test. But don't associate the Blue School or any of its like to a progressive education. We believe in books... that should say enough for itself, right?

Photograph by Christopher Meder/iStockphoto.

This is the long and short of it: with or without systems in place, kids are going to join Facebook long before they are legally allowed to.

A relative of mine posted to her Timeline earlier this week and asked her friends what age was appropriate (I'm assuming she did not know about the TOS requirements beforehand). Unsurprisingly, many of her friends commented that they allowed their children to join at 10, 11, and 12, with varying degrees of supervision. And for every parent that knows when their child joined Facebook, there are probably half a dozen more who don't even realize that their 2nd-grader is on Facebook.

This is probably an awful analogy to make, considering the subject of this post, but it's the only example I feel like I can accurately describe. Sex education. With or without it, teenagers are going to have sex. The question is, do they benefit in the long-term from programs being set in place to keep them safe and healthy while doing so?

After it became cool in the early 2000s to do the socially-conservative thing and spend millions telling kids that their boyfriends and girlfriends were icky, studies started to surface that showed abstinence-only sex education was positively correlated with teenage pregnancy and STD infections. The evidence clearly shows that these education programs (which are essentially the absence of education) lead to kids participating in unsafe sexual activities.

So let's bring the point back around to Facebook. What they are trying to accomplish right now is educate, inform, and equip children and their families with the tools necessary to keep themselves safe on the Internet. With their help, parents will be directly connected to their children's account, allowing them the ability to manage their friends lists, monitor their private messages or disable them completely, and a suite of other settings that could protect your child online. By opposing this proposal, you're essentially claiming that Facebook-abstinence is going to protect children from the dangers of the Internet.

And it's not.

Because since the beginning of time, children have been getting around the barriers set in place by adults. I'm pretty sure I got my first Neopets account long before I was 13, and this was in the dark days of the Internet where there was almost no way of knowing if SuperPetLuvr194 was a fellow teenager in Arkansas or a 55-year old man in Detroit.

Today's preteens are going to live within a world where they need to have the skills and knowledge necessary to remain safe and secure. Waiting until they are 13 or 14 to start training them in these skills may be too late.

To sum up the results, the ebooks containing animations, video clips, sound, etc. were less beneficial to adults and children reading together. As you can imagine, reading these ebooks is fun and if your goal is to get a child to become interested in the process of reading, they're great! I've seen a few of the classic childrens books ported over to iPads and other tablets and they look and sound awesome... in many cases, they are the physical representations of the details I would add to a story as I was reading it. My imagination at work, brought to life on the screen. But that's part of the problem... the study found that content-related actions between the child and their reading partner decreased, and the focus quickly became the moving parts themselves.

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone, but I don't think the alarms need to be raised just yet. For one reason, any book in the hands of children is better than no book at all. Two, teachers and parents just need to think about their objectives when choosing between print and ebooks. If you're having a tough time dragging a child away from the television, it's quite possible that your "boring" childrens book isn't going to get any attention. But when that book becomes somewhat similar to what they are looking for in television and video games, you're pulling children closer to the ultimate goal of getting them to read something.

The study looks to move on to identifying what elements of enhanced ebooks are the most distracting, as well as which elements actually are beneficial to both engagement AND comprehension.

And then, for a variety of reasons, those manuals started shrinking. It wasn't that video games became less complex - a casual gamer in the 90s might argue that a manual the size of the one that came with Earthbound is necessary for most of the video games they see "hardcore" gamers playing nowadays - but the information contained within them became integrated into the games themselves. When processing power was limited and you could only pack so many hours of gameplay into a cartridge, publishers didn't want to spend the first half hour of a video game explaining the premise and the controls. You were usually thrown headfirst into the game.

In fact, players of the original Super Mario Bros. game are usually shocked to find out, years later, the true backstory of the game.

DISCLAIMER: Since the Mario franchise has so many pieces and parts, the true backstory is disputed. My version is based on the (hilarious) Super Mario Bros. television show theme song, as well as an instruction booklet or two. I'm sure there are countless interpretations.

While I thought that I was being a good citizen of the Mushroom Kingdom and fighting valiantly to rescue the princess, I was actually playing a castaway. Mario and Luigi weren't actual denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom, they were brought there in a plumbing accident(!) in what was probably our own reality. Everyone knows that Toads (and the occasional humanoid female, for some reason) are the majority "race" in that world, but did you know that their tiny little bodies were turned into the very same blocks that Mario mindlessly smashes into in pursuit of gold coins? Yeah, that one blew my mind also.

I digress. As the technology improved, video games began a marked transition into training the player as part of the game. You could usually count on the first level or two being an obvious tutorial, teaching you the commands and controls necessary to function in the game. The most innovative games made you feel as if you weren't participating in a tutorial... which is the real point of this post.

I know plenty of people who want a 100-page instruction manual for everything that they do in life. We all know these people! But unfortunately, there are few things simple enough to condense into a set of instructions. And as your work includes more and more people in it, you start to understand that the instruction manual isn't given to you on Day One of the job. Instead, you spend your first few days awkwardly stumbling along until you get a feel for how to function, and then you're given more and more scaffolding to help you solve the larger problems. But sometimes, you're faced with a trial that there is just not a clear solution for.

This has two implications for readers of this blog: one, this is how every classroom and school in America should be set up. Two, this is how every person who works with infants, toddlers, young children, teenagers, young adults, adults, and the elderly - namely, every single person on the planet - should be prepared to work. There is no instruction manual anymore, and there probably won't be a time when we return to printing one up for every situation. If we succeed at number one, training our children to think this way, it won't be difficult to make the transition.

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you are to just live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.

That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again. 

Quoting Steve Jobs and showing clips from one of his many video interviews seems to be one of the best ways to garner attention on the Internet, but I promise that's not my primary intent in embedding this video here. Instead, I wanted to use it to lead into the most important thing that teachers (and anyone responsible for the growth, development, and education of young children across the world) need to remember: we need to promote the understanding that the world is malleable. It can always be changed.

If you don't agree, I completely understand why. Life is tough and there are some tragedies that haven't been avoided and may never be eliminated. But I will never forgive you for being the kind of person that stands in the way of any young boy or girl who naively believes that everything around them can, and should be, improved for the better.

Just when parents thought they might finally be free of their children, many of this year’s college graduates will pick up their degrees — and move back home. Even those who don’t may continue to live off the parental dole...

But this is not necessarily the nightmare scenario it’s made out to be. Our research shows that the closer bonds between young adults and their parents should be celebrated, and do not necessarily compromise the independence of the next generation.

Phew, I really needed that. The writer goes on to explain that my parents' generation, when faced with the trials of graduating high school and college and being dumped out into a society rife with unemployment and uncertainty, depended on the advice (for better or for worse) of their own peers. You can see how that'd quickly cause some problems, most of which I'm sure could never be attributed to any of the late 20th century's social uprisings. But my generation, on the other hand, retains a symbiotic relationship with our parents and guardians that may not be the worst thing that could happen to us.

A personal example. This week, I discovered that my income (or complete lack of any, considering that I haven't had a job since February) wasn't going to raise my cash-on-hand up above this coming month's expenses... the credit card companies were going to be asking for my hard-saved money and when they pried it away from me, I was going to be left with, uh... less than enough for my countless expenses (food).

25 years ago (or with the mindset that "I can take on the world all by myself, I don't need anyone's help!") I might have closed my eyes and randomly picked one of my three credit cards to carry over a balance, leading to increased debt. And just like those Comcast commercials, this simple decision would have led me to joining a gang, losing an arm, and missing my chance to become a blackbelt in karate.

But instead, I called my mom! And 15 minutes later (and with a small, but generous, loan) I had a plan for how I'd stay afloat for another few weeks. Now I can pursue my dreams of martial arts glory.

In closing, a large part of the world doesn't see any problem with this. Many cultures actually expect children to live with their parents into adulthood and someday support them. Other countries are faced with the actual need for children to contribute to their parents' income and well-being... at least in America we have the choice, and I don't think it's one that we should be ashamed of having.

From the Washington Post:

But as their budgets begin to improve, boards now face choices about spending increases: Should they raise salaries, lower class sizes or restore programs that had been cut?

Several local boards have opted this year for pay increases, in response to demands from teachers and other employees whose salaries had stagnated.

And so what priorities were left on the cutting room floor? Restoring arts programs, pre-kindergarten and other early intervention programs, summer-school, and decreasing class sizes. (One concerned father expressed worry that his daughter's kindergarten class would max out at 25 students this coming year, which probably sounds like a dream scenario for leagues of kindergarten teachers across the nation.)

The Prince William County district has been pressured in recent years to make budget cuts, and decided this spring to push the limits of its middle and high school class sizes in order to find some extra money. But the money saved, where did it go? Raises for its employees:

'This year the priority was keeping pace with salaries around the region,' said Philip Kavits, a spokesman for Prince William schools. 'We don’t want to lose people.'

On behalf of countless unemployed teachers across America, I think I can safely say that you'd be able to find a few people to take the spots of those who left because teaching just wasn't paying them enough.

Ugh, Fast Company. When I saw this headline, I expected that a trip to The Onion was in order. I hadn't heard the news of AT&T's investment in educational games yet, but I was certain that this article was lampooning whatever decision had actually been made in an AT&T boardroom somewhere.

But I was wrong, and this article was dead serious. The authors, Judah Schiller and Christine Arena, are the founders of AIKO, an "intelligent agency" (no, seriously, their website states their intelligence right in the header) that basically consults with large corporations seeking to improve their public image by taking on causes important to their customers. In this case, they chose to pat AT&T on the back for giving a grant to GameDesk, a nonprofit/startup focusing on educational games for children. A disclaimer on the article also notes that GameDesk is one of AIKO's flagship partners. Just sayin'.

My beef, so you know, is not with GameDesk (or the larger goal of AIKO). My problem is with Schiller and Arena taking a relatively small example of corporate philanthropy, raising it up in significance above a "tried and true" donation to the United Way (apparently as long as kids are playing games, they won't be worried about their parents' unemployment and their inequitable access to healthcare), and then giving AT&T executives all the credit for disrupting education. Furthermore, we're supposed to believe that other companies should follow this trend and start giving more money to so-called disruptors in education.

Can we all start to agree that the problem with our public education system has nothing to do with games?

I may be especially cranky these days, but this just reeks of the same "investments" and "innovation" that companies like Apple, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson are bringing to the table these days. All of which end in huge profits for those companies and fodder for articles about how ebooks and tablets are going to ensure that every child graduates high school and competes with China lives a happy, successful life.

Educators know best the realities of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and it can be applied to organizations and communities just as easily as it can be applied to individual lives. Until our basic needs are met (by combatting rising inequity between minorities in schools, widespread budget cuts to districts, and a baffling disrespect for teachers and education professionals in the media) we can't even begin to ponder the ways that games and tablets are going to revolutionize education. Apple doesn't profit from hiring more teachers, and Pearson's massive testing centers actually benefit from a populace who believes the people teaching their children need to be vetted better. So remind me again why we should be looking to those companies for the secret solution to our problems?

The answer to my question comes from another one of Schiller and Arena's blog posts earlier this year:

We expect to see many more companies invest deeply in education, not simply as a cause du jour, but as a means of innovation and marketplace survival.

Colleges (including Ohio University, which I'll get to in a moment) have already begun field-testing this system in the last year or two, but it's in the news now because instructors and student teachers at the University of Massachusetts are choosing to opt-out of sending their portfolios and final reports to a company best known in 2012 for introducing children across America to the story of a talking pineapple and other ridiculously unfair and biased test questions. (Pearson has since stated that its tests are valid and reliable. As always, it's the student's fault for not recognizing the moral of a story in which a group of animals inexplicably eat a pineapple because it doesn't have sleeves or something. I'm just as lost as everyone else.) I sure hope the 15-billion dollar company can maintain a profit in 2012.

Where did this idea come from? According to an official at UMass, it was the fault of the shadowy "education reform movement":

Ms. Willett said the education reform movement had been highly critical of teacher education programs, complaining that not enough weak candidates were being eliminated. An independent measure should reassure the public, she said.

That's right! The general public, always bashing teachers for being weak and lazy and incompetent, you've gone and pushed Pearson into a situation I'm sure it doesn't want to be in at all. Now it has to decide if you're good enough to be a teacher.

And I'm not sure if Pearson really has the time to devote to this effort, to be honest. As the New York Times article pointed out:

In New York, Pearson will be able to test a teacher’s worth from start to finish. The company currently administers the test students must pass to be admitted to a teaching program and is developing the testing system that will be used to calculate each teacher’s annual performance score.

Soon, Pearson will start distributing those little personality quizzes the guidance counselor hands out in the third grade. Surely this company, with its highly paid employees (outsourced, of course, for $75 per test) and transparent system of governance, can tell if an eight year-old really has what it takes to become a teacher, right?

Update: The actual requirements for the assessment itself, titled the Teacher Performance Assessment, are almost impossible to find. Fortunately for you, I've completed a TPA in the field test at Ohio University and have uploaded a copy of the handbook to Scribd for you to view here.