From the story…
Well, duh. Getting paid is why people go to work.
This, however, makes my flesh crawl. Paying kids to go to tutoring, and for higher grades? How is this compatible with the idea that learning is it’s own reward? I know most kids would just laugh at that, but as they get older, doesn’t that lesson become clear?
Am I just crazy here? And what must the taxpayers of Fulton County think?
Hey, it’s worth a shot. It could be interesting to see the results.
I’ve got mixed feelings, myself. On the one hand, poor education is often touted as one of the major factors behind continuing poverty, and chronic poverty is usually considered a huge risk factor for criminal behavior. And so, paying students for results, if it gets them to learn, so they can improve themselves is going to be cheaper than housing a lifer prisoner in a few years.
On the other hand, with schools already strapped for cash in ways that leave teachers having to supply so much of what most of us think of as necessary school supplies, where will this money come from? FTM, what does it say when the state is paying only the poor students to improve, and not the good ones?
I think it’s worth a try, but I don’t know how well such a program could be expanded through a whole school district.
AFAIK things like this have been tried. The results usually are that grades rise while the money is being paid (often through cheating), and afterwards drop further down than before. It’s human nature at work. You can get anyone to believe that something isn’t worthwhile in itself by offering a reward for it, so that they’ll have less motivation than ever when the reward stops.
Once the focus is on the money, I predict that cheating will rise and students will be more interested in the reward than on learning anything properly, much less learning something extra because it’s neat or useful. Even grades do this: “Will this be on the test? (Why should I learn it if I won’t be graded on it? The grade is more important than what I learn.)”
Paying for work is, IMO, a slightly different proposition. Everyone needs to make a living, so they have to get paid. As long as the salary is seen as fair compensation for the work, people are usually OK. But if you upset the balance with motivational prizes, horrible work conditions, or any of a million ways to focus a person on a paycheck as compensation for a horrible job, you’ll get a similar result.
Agreed. They’d be much better off, IMHO, with an intermittent reward system. Perhaps offering $100 lotteries once a month, and only kids with no tardies, or no D’s, or who showed up for tutoring twice a week, are eligible for the drawing. Even the people who don’t get the reward will keep trying for it, and it’d probably cost less in the long run.
You already answered this. Shouldn’t “a job well done” be reward enough for working 40 hours a week?
Methinks that’d be a bit TOO intermittent.
So I work my ass off, come in in my free time instead of hanging out with friends all to have a 1-in-1800 chance of winning a whole two tanks of gas? Color me less than impressed.
Though dangermom has some valid points I think.
Okay, weekly then. Or whatever. The point is simply that conditioning works better on an intermitent reward schedule than a consistent one. See: Vegas slots.
I think WhyNot is right that a lottery or something else of an intermittent nature would have a much stronger impact. Whoever came up with the idea of just directly paying the kids obviously didn’t study for their Psychology 101 class. 
What this approach addresses is the fact that in some families, there isn’t an understanding that the work of doing well in school for 12 years has a tangible reward. The parents likely did not do well in school, and while they parrot the school’s message that kids should work hard and pay attention, life is really about getting out of school and getting a job. At my old high school, a lot of kids would rather go to work at Taco Bell for $4.25 from 4-11 every weeknight to make cash than study. In fact, some kids had to work to bring home money to pay the rent, groceries, etc.
I don’t necessarily like the approach myself, but it does confront a reality for many poor students and their families. I’d prefer something else, like a rent subsidy for good grades, because it gives the parents a great incentive to push the kids. But some asshole would probably beat their kid because he didn’t make the grade or something. Or a certificate to pay for credits at the community college.
The system isn’t broken, it’s working just fine. It’s just that the system doesn’t really work for poor kids of color, and poor kids of any stripe who don’t have parental and community advocacy on their side. I suppose we’ll have to see how this pans out. Though the question arises: what happens when kids get to a point where they’re not getting paid for good grades?
Former Atlanta Public School student here (not Fulton County but similar demographic).
I’m all about rewards, but money isn’t a good one. I’ve heard of a program for one high school (funded by local businesses) in which students making at least 1000 on the SAT get an all-expense paid trip to New York. Not only does that represent more cash per individual, but it actually rewards an educational achievement with something educational (as well as fun). Lots of inner city kids never get out of the city, let alone the state. Money can be taken by greedy parents or wasted on stupid things, but the memories of a good field trip will last forever.
All I’m about incentivizing good behavior, but above-minimum wage is too much, especially when we’re talking about middle school kids.
How exactly is learning good by itself? What’s this “learning for learning’s sake” stuff? There’s a reason I don’t know how to build a house. I’ll never do it. Learning is only good when you need the knowledge. That’s why you’ll never be able to convince kids to study without incentives like this or convincing them that they need to go to college. And why do we need to go to college, kids? That’s right, to get money! I’d try the latter technique before the former.
Boo on that. I love learning new stuff…
I don’t know if you have kids, but would you really be comfortable telling them to go to college to make more money?
I think that might be one of the problems with schools. Everything is pointed toward pushing everyone into a college. But, especially with poorer kids, they may never see college as a true choice - which is incorrect, but that is how they view it based on what surrounds them.
What about putting trades back into high school? They may make more students excited about learning and doing things if they can take a semester of cosmotology or woodworking, instead of yet another semester about the Civil War. That way, kids who like history can take Civil War and kids who like doing things can take Construction 101.
I know that studies show that college grads make X% more than high school grads, but there is a big strip of economy between McMansions and slums. The trades have traditionally taken up much of that space, based on apprenticeships and trade schools.
Here in Dallas we pay kids for passing AP exams in math, science, or English but not in Foreign Languages or Social studies. I’ve thought for years that there is a great research project in that, looking how the patterns of passing the various exams diverge from the patterns of other testing areas. There are other issues–the same program that pays the kids in those areas pays the teachers as well, and sets up tutoring sessions and such, but it would still be an interesting paper on the impact of incentives in learning.