i think its a bad idea, for two reason, first one being, if they'd done that when i was at school, i'd have ended up owing money, and second, i think it could lead to various problems in later life, such as them becoming more demanding for pay rises etc. in later life, which could lead to unemployment for some, and perhaps bring about a "what's in it for me" sort of mentality, which could not onlyu make 'em lazy, but leave altruism laying in the dust.
It's a bad idea, an education should be treasured, and made the most of. Not something that kids do only to make a quick buck.
I'd say there is no one answer. Each child is different. If you are trying to push a kid w/ good grades who tries a little but could try more, perhaps this is the right motivation... so long as you believe they already understand the importance of getting good grades. But for a child who really just doesn't care, if you offer them money, then getting that money will be their only motivation for getting better grades - which shouldn't be the true driving force. It should just be a reward for succeeding with a more 'true' driving force: Their future.
Bad Idea/Rootabega.
You can teach children to want to enjoy learning, you don't need to pay them.
Using money as an incentive is just laziness.
Did any of you read the entire article? It appears that "no" is the answer. If you had done so then you would fully understand just *what* was done and *what* the findings were.
The experiment he did wasn't just "giving students $20.00 per A, $10.00 per B" - it was giving a variety of schools different methods of "earning" money - some schools were given money based on attendance, others based on the books that they read throughout the year. Other were paid for behavior, some were paid for grades and others were paid or a variety of these things. Yet again other students as in KIPP (page 3/4) weren't paid with money at all - but with incentives (pencils, erasers, neato things).
This is how some of you are responding - note the ridiculous "but they should WANT to learn for the love of learning" when it's obviously NOT working out for any of these students:
This time, Fryer wanted to get a random sample of city schools to participate. Which is not as easy as it sounds. At some schools, the principal and teachers opened their arms wide and said, "Sure. We're struggling here. We'll try anything." At others, Fryer had to spend hours pleading with staff who felt kids should learn for the love of learning — not for the cash. "To this day, I can't tell you what will predict one or the other," he says. "I could walk into a completely failing school, with crack vials on the ground outside, and say, 'Hey, I went to a school like this, and I want to help.' And people would just browbeat me about 'the love of learning,' and I would be like, 'But I just stepped on crack vials out there! There are fights in the hallways! We're beyond that.'
Here are some snippets of his findings:
In the city where Fryer expected the most success, the experiment had no effect at all — "as zero as zero gets," as he puts it. In two other cities, the results were promising but in totally different ways. In the last city, something remarkable happened. Kids who got paid all year under a very elegant scheme performed significantly better on their standardized reading tests at the end of the year. Statistically speaking, it was as if those kids had spent three extra months in school, compared with their peers who did not get paid.
If incentives are designed wisely, it appears, payments can indeed boost kids' performance as much as or more than many other reforms you've heard about before — and for a fraction of the cost.
So what happens if we pay kids to do tasks they know how to do? In Dallas, paying kids to read books — something almost all of them can do — made a big difference. In fact, the experiment had as big or bigger an effect on learning as many other reforms that have been tested, like lowering class size or enrolling kids in Head Start early-education programs (both of which cost thousands of dollars more per student). And the experiment also boosted kids' grades. "If you pay a kid to read books, their grades go up higher than if you actually pay a kid for grades, like we did in Chicago," Fryer says. "Isn't that cool?"
Here, I feel, are a few key points in why this worked/didn't work:
The students were universally excited about the money, and they wanted to earn more. They just didn't seem to know how. When researchers asked them how they could raise their scores, the kids mentioned test-taking strategies like reading the questions more carefully. But they didn't talk about the substantive work that leads to learning. "No one said they were going to stay after class and talk to the teacher," Fryer says. "Not one."
I think this following quote really speaks bounds - it's not for a lack of WANTING to do better (for students and teachers) but HOW do you improve when all you DO know how to do is failing:?
We tend to assume that kids (and adults) know how to achieve success. If they don't get there, it's for lack of effort — or talent. Sometimes that's true. But a lot of the time, people are just flying blind. John List, an economist at the University of Chicago, has noticed the disconnect in his own education experiments. He explains the problem to me this way: "I could ask you to solve a third-order linear partial differential equation," he says. "A what?" I ask. "A third-order linear partial differential equation," he says. "I could offer you a million dollars to solve it. And you can't do it." (He's right. I can't.) For some kids, doing better on a geometry test is like solving a third-order linear partial differential equation, no matter the incentive.
This is also very important:
Over the years, KIPP leaders, who now run 82 schools nationwide, have learned a lot about which rewards work and which do not. They have found that speed matters, for example. Recognition, like punishment, works best if it happens quickly. So KIPP schools pay their kids every week. (Interestingly, the two places Fryer's experiment worked best were the ones where kids got feedback fast — through biweekly paychecks in Washington and through passing computerized quizzes in Dallas.)
And of the utmost importance is parental involvement and even pride - these parents, here, were SO PROUD of their children for doing WELL in school and that likely had far reaching positive effects throughout the children's lives, not just at school:
Parents began using the paychecks as progress reports, contacting teachers to find out why their kids' checks had gone up or down.
Now - based on actually reading it, I think it would have positive while in effect - but negative after it ends, except the "pay to read" which was proven to improve a student's overall school-savvy even after the incentives are taken away.
One bad thing that they didn't mention at all - and I know is an absolute matter of fact - is that some parents would be just as dependent on their child's incentives as much as their hard earned paycheck. How many students, do you think, had to give part or all of it to their parents for their parents to spend freely? I would consider that a resoundingly negative and it would take away from anything good that the students would gain for the program.
I think it also would teach a few things such as financial management, budgeting, and the value of hard work = a better living.
Finally, the last bad thing is: it costs money - just like all other programs (though direct incentives TO the students costs LESS than Head Start or the process of thinning the # of students on a classroom) . . . and when things cost money they always run the risk of becoming too much to continue to pay for.
That being said - I think his payments of $200.00 and so on was ridiculously high - I think they could have done just as well giving far less, making it even more of a savings than a HeadStart or other program.
So - after all this whole long post - would I support it for my children? No.
I give them incentives, already, and they're not money. . . nor do they *cost* money. My children (mainly my older two) were, to be honest, terrible terrible students - I had to change that, I didn't wait for someone else to swoop in and work some magic. I stepped in and took care of business.
Since I am an involved and encouraging parent and I think that's probably the key to these students doing well as I already mentioned.
Since my children already are doing very well in school - there would be little room for them to improve their behavior, attendance and so on from where it's at, now. . . so, if anything, they would benefit little and only the underprivileged or poorly behaving students would show improvement - which would create tension and bitterness between students who already have a love for learning/incentives from concerned and involved parents/and a grasp on educational matters.
Since these same results can be achieved without incentives - while the reports are positive - I think that time and money would be better spent elsewhere.