Likeonomics: The Unexpected Truth Behind Earning Trust, Influencing Behavior, and Inspiring Action

Chapter 3

The ROI of  Likeability: Why Spreadsheets Need to Die, Websites Stink, and Likeable Politicians Always Win

Why Spreadsheets Need to Die, Websites Stink, and Likeable Politicians Always Win

How does one measure the success of a museum?

—J. Paul Getty, American Industrialist and Art Collector

 

In 1985, the state of Tennessee launched a school reform program to prove what most people would have believed anyway: that students in smaller classes would perform better. Called Project STAR (Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio), the project was conducted over a four-year period in 79 elementary schools across the state. When it was complete, Harvard professor Frederick Mosteller was the man who led the follow-up research team on what he dramatically called “one of the most important educational investigations ever carried out.”¹

The findings of the research were clear: Students who were placed in smaller classes showed significantly higher test scores than those who were not. Ten years later they interviewed the same students (then in tenth grade) and found that they had continued to outperform their peers and also showed “greater initiative with regard to learning activities and less disruptive or inattentive behavior.”

In the summer of 1996, encouraged by these long-term results over the past decade, California Governor Pete Wilson led a sweeping reform requiring all California schools to lower the maximum class size from 33 students per teacher to no more than 20 per teacher. ...