Problem-Solving Application Incentives, Performance, and Schools Like organizations in other industries, the Houston in the 2017-18 school year, and they planned to Independent School District (HISD) believed it could spend a similar amount in 2018-2019. But there direct, motivate, and improve performance with was a problem-it didn't work. The 40 schools expe- monetary rewards. The goal was to improve the rienced tremendous turnover-40-60 percent of skills and test scores of students at 40 underper- teachers at worst schools quit-but the teachers forming schools who replaced them had nearly identical (poor) rat- Officials thought the underlying reasons for the ings when they arrived. underperformance were low performing teachers, This left officials scratching their heads. The dis- as those at the target schools were twice as likely to mal results might have been due to the fact they be rated ineffective" or "needs improvement than had no performance criteria for teachers to qualify in well-performing schools. Worse still teachers at for the bonus and move to one of the 40 schools these same schools were half as likely to be rated Moving to the worst performing schools could be "highly effectwe. School district leaders veasoned perceived as very risky, as highly rated teachers' that offering money--$5000 signing bonuses- performance could drop in a more challenging, would attract better teachers to the poor performing underperforming school. Adding to the risk, some schools teachers would presumably be giving up a position Officials spent nearly $7 million to incentivize at a "better school. Of course, it also was possible highly rated teachers to move to the target schools $5000 just wasn't enough for many." Apply the 3-skep Problem-solving Approach. Step 1: Define the problem HiSD officials wanted to fix Step 2: Identify the potential causes of this problem. (Consider also the common reasons rewards fail to motivate) Step 3: Make your recommendations