2008.08.22
Cash incentives
The school year is young, and in some cases in the NRV still to come, but I wanted to talk about what's happening in Washington, D.C. this fall.
Cash for good behavior.
Yep, the Washington Post is reporting on that the district's superintendent, Michelle Rhee, plans to offer middle-school students a point system for turning in homework, going to class and showing good manners. The kids can earn up to 50 points per month, at $2 per point.
A maximum of $2.7 million has been set aside for the program, the Post said.
Now, I've not heard of this locally, but I know parents who give their kids cash for good grades. What do you think of this incentive move?
The argument can be made that people get paid to work, so why shouldn't students get paid to work. Rhee calls it "radical intervention" for the area's dismal schools.
What do you call it?
What ever happened to taking pride in your work? I believe that grades are worth working hard for... alone.
Comment by Amy Hanek — August 24, 2008 @ 9:25 pm
Grades are a good incentive as it is but having the ability to make a little bit of money on the side isn't necessarily a bad thing. I mean what students have to look forward after school, work where you do tasks in return for money. I think that the cash is a good incentive on top of grades, and maybe save someone from becoming a drop out. There is nothing wrong with getting paid to pay attention, albeit a tad pathetic.
Comment by Eric Colley — August 26, 2008 @ 11:24 am
Frankly, I find this program ridiculous. Why should students be rewarded for SHOWING UP?! I understand that they are working hard for their grades, but those grades should be reward enough. Those grades will get them into better colleges and get them better jobs later in life, but if they take that money given to them for getting an A, they'll take that and blow it on petty fun. Like it said in the article, it is undermining the very thing that school is trying to teach: school is to prepare students to go out into the world and work for their means of survival, not show up for a day and have money handed to you to spend on frivilous activities.
They claim that it will encourage the students to show up and continue on into high school, but i personally think that it will do just the opposite. By paying the students to come and do well in middle school, yes, the rate of dropouts in MIDDLE SCHOOL will decrease. However, the rates in high school will probably shoot straight up when they get to high school and realize that they aren't getting paid anymore.
I want to know where this money is coming from, especially for the AP testing programs in Virginia. Is this money coming from tax-payers?
Also, I want to know how they pick which schools recieve the program. Do they have some kind of system to decide which schools deserve the reward program? Or are they selected at random?
Personally, I think that if they are going to stick with this program, they need to at least put the money into some form of a savings account, not just hand the money straight to the students. They could start a college fund for the students which they could recieve at a certain point before graduation. In that way, they would at least be helping the students to continue their education, not just paying them to show up.
Comment by Rachel Cline — August 26, 2008 @ 11:34 am