Incentives in K-12 Education – The Perils of Not Just Measuring Performance by Standardized Tests, but Financially Rewarding It (WP-25-05)
Burton Weisbrod
While the specific application of standardized performance testing for students has been debated over the years, the concept continues as a means of monitoring and encouraging better K-12 education. And yet, there remains a need to consider broader public policy issues of how incentives and undesired distortions occur, and what can be done to ameliorate them. In fact, standardized testing can and often does trigger a host of other actions and behaviors that may differ from intended outcomes. This paper examines the history of U.S. public policy regarding student educational performance measurement, its associated use, and resulting incentives. Through a series of case studies, it shows how strong rewards tied to simplistic testing-based performance measures can and does lead to undesired consequences. It discusses the economic concept of how and why measurement itself leads to changes in behaviors, and the rationale behind behaviors of ”gaming” testing systems to enable the appearance of better results. Finally, it points to the need for more sophisticated measurement of teaching performance with more nuanced use of “weaker” rather than “stronger” financial rewards as a way to better achieve desired results.