There are several schools throughout the United States initiating programs that will pay high school and elementary school students for getting good grades.
Baltimore schools have dedicated more than $935,000 to pay high school students up to $110 each to improve their state graduation exam scores. Seven other states (Arkansas, Alabama, Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington) are participating in an Exxon/Mobil funded program that pays students $100 for each passing grade on advanced placement exams.
Though many educators are enthusiastic about the program, others feel it’s a short sighted solution.
USA Today reports:
But a few critics say the payouts amount to little more than bribes, undermining kids’ motivation to do high-quality work when they’re not being paid.
“It’s a strategy that helps only around the edges,” says Thomas Toch of the Education Sector, a Washington think tank. Most students in AP classes “are already internally motivated, and the opportunity to earn college credits for passing AP tests is a bigger motivator than small cash awards.”
Bob Schaeffer of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, a watchdog group, is more blunt: “Bribing kids for higher test scores — or paying teachers bounties for their students’ work — is similar to giving them steroids,” he says. “Short-term performance might improve but the long-term effects can be very damaging.”
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I am not even thinking about if it is a *good* idea. It is just plain sad. Our public school systems are so bad that we can only think to pay kids cash for good improving their grades?! I’m sure it is a short term solution but really, if that is were we are, we are screwed.
September 12th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
There’s got to be a better option…what that option is? Not sure that the moment – obviously they’re not sure either!
September 12th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
The article states that: “It’s an effort to get low-income and minority students interested in the courses” which I feel is a start.
Low income families rarely go on vacations or have the money to purchase a PSP at the end of the school year for their child who went onto 9th grade.
It may be too early to tell how bad or good the program is for society. Are we breeding a society with low inner values? Or truly helping helping those less fortunate see the light at the end of the tunnel.
September 12th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
You know, when it comes to less well off kids, I’m not at all sure this is a bad idea. Kids often have a hard time seeing past their noses and this might give some of them the shove they need. Carrots do work sometimes.
September 13th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
“But a few critics say the payouts amount to little more than bribes, undermining kids’ motivation to do high-quality work when they’re not being paid.”
Paying people for doing work assigned to them… is a bribe. If you really think about it, how many adults in the “real world” go to their job and have the motivation to do high quality work without being paid? Does that amount to a bribe, too?
If we’re so concerned about raising children to be willing to devote more than a third of their life to working on something that someone else tells them to do, not something they want to do, but HAVE to do, without being paid for it, then why aren’t we as adults willing to do the same?
I’m on the fence about whether I feel its a good or a bad idea, but I don’t feel “the critics” have a valid point.
September 16th, 2008 at 5:29 am