I can't even begin to describe what's wrong with this.

Students need a motivating factor to succeed. To think that "knowledge is its own reward" is silly and naive, and look where that approach has gotten us.

Is there really a difference between gold stars and free money?

When they grow up, they'll get paid to do a good job, so why not start now?

Great idea. No money no work just like in real life after school. Teachers on commission great idea. Your class does well you earn extra $$ just as it should be.

I'm a student teacher. Incentives are incentives, and I support this completely.

MOST students don't get an education so that they can get a job because "it's own reward" - they get it so they can receive a paycheck. I wouldn't sit in a cubicle for 4-8 hours a day (my *other* job) unless I received one.

Considering that it is human nature to gain the most from the least amount of effort. So eventually we will have more shady kids cheating to get the best scores so they can get the most money.

Also the same goes for the teachers. Although there will be less cheating on the teacher's part, there will be less incentive to teach critical thinking.

But this is the state of education after No Child Left Behind.

I can easily see unscrupulous parents taking advantage of this. I can also easily see this teaching children that greed is the only reason to get an education.

@mgy: That should read "because it is "its own reward". I hit submit a little too fast.

I also wanted to point out that this method is cheaper than hiring consultants and testing companies and buying new, unnecessary equipment in order to increase student performance. To high school kids - 20 bucks is all it takes to increase their motivation and performance. To high school administrators - $20,000 is.

"We need to stop giving gold stars to kids as incentives to do well on their tests. They should be motivated by the desire to learn!"

Gold stars or cash, both are incentives. I don't see the difference.

@Echodork: You're exactly right. Although I think knowledge is a great reward, the majority of kids are too involved with their texting and MySpace [God rest their souls] to care about learning. But if you translate paying attention and getting good grades into $50 cash, you've suddeny caught their attention.

If you have a kid that is motivated to learn for the sake of learning, then that's great; I applaud your parenting on many levels. Most kids are not this way, however, and we need something to motivate these kids.

If current education scores and things were doing well, I would say it's a waste of money. But, as we all know, standardized test scores are slipping fast. The thought of completely moronic, uneducated idiots running this country scares me on several levels. If it takes fifty bucks to get them to pay attention instead of zoning out with their iPods, then I say do it. For us, and for them.

As a "smart kid" who often got the "Doesn't work up to his potential" complaint from educators, a better motivator than an 'A' instead of a 'B' might have in fact been helpful to me.

Unfortunately, this program cannot succeed because it is based on standardized testing scores which is not the same as actual learning.

"Critics of these efforts say that children should be inspired to learn for knowledge's sake, not to earn money,"

I've never even heard of a chiled "inspired to learn for knowledge's sake". What a load.

On the surface this seems like a sensible direct cause and effect solution. However the long term impact to a developing child's personality could be devastating.
As to whether knowledge is its own reward being naive, I would reply that knowledge can be very rewarding as well as probably even more importantly there is the impact on a developing child's mind of the actual process of learning. Equating the process of learning with failure with "look where that approach has gotten us." is flawed because many people don't seem to realize that the education system we take for granted as 'the norm' has only been in widespread use for less than 100 years. And keep in mind that that is 100 years out of approximately 150,000 years of human (meaning as smart as us today) history. When it comes to human education the story is far richer and involved than simply institutionalized classroom environments.

A handful of problems I see with this:

1) Kids whose parents have never really had much to do with education or measured response now AVID to make their kids succeed to bring in the money, creating neurotic parents and jittery kids. School depression is already high.
2) The money is given directly to the kids, which takes spending power away from the parents, and the abilities to make decisions as to what the kids spend the money on (drugs or candy as opposed to, say, books or groceries).
3) What someone else said about teachers cutting corners. This is already happening all over California in an attempt to keep up with the higher standards post NCLB. Throw money into that mix, and the kids will never see a thing that isn't on the test.
4) Why not take the money and put it into teacher training? Teach teachers how to make motivated students without incentives (including the blasted gold stars).

This is bullshit. As a teacher, I am sickened by this nonsense because here's what's going to happen:

Children are not going to become better educated in order to meet high standards. Standards will be -- and have been -- lowered. Last year, "proficient" meant "at grade level." This year, "proficient" means "two years below grade level."

I saw Daniel Pink speak last week, and he delivered a great line. "We must," he said, "prepare our children for their future, not our past." Incentivizing high scores on left-brained activities -- which will all be outsourced to India anyway -- will put our students at a disadvantage. Reforming our curricula is the only way to go.

Grrr.

Around here they want to start paying students who improve their scores on final/graduation required exams. So what's to stop them from purposely doing poorly the first time around and grab the rewards after passing the next time?

Good, Teachers in this country don't do enough. They're a bunch of soccer moms on power trips. Stop complaining about your salary, if you do it because you love it, then money is the last thing you should be complaining about it. Go get a real degree.

If we pay kids to become critically literate in language arts, mathematics, etc., I am all for it. But paying for test scores? Ugh. This just continues the (mis)conception that tests are a valid way to measure a student's ability (or even achievement is an area like reading or math).

www.rethinkingschools.com

A few people enjoy learning for its own sake, but those people will do well in school regardless of what incentives you provide, and they will often accomplish great things to the benefit of humanity. We do not need to worry about those people.

Everyone else, however, needs incentives in order to preform well, as any economist can tell you. Arguing that kids should find intrinsic reward in their education is a moral judgment which lacks relevancy in regards to how the world actually operates. Reality is often cold and unattractive from an idealistic point of view, but without acknowledging as much you are doomed to flounder, economically speaking.

Today, athletes earn trophies and public accolades from great achievement in sports. This program is merely doing the same thing for academic achievement.

For an inner-city population which believes they have more of a chance of success from pursuing the 1-in-a-million goal of becoming a professional sports player rather than success from pursing good grades and a good job, this is truly a great program that will adjust those misplaced notions.

This is the best quote from the article:

"Barbara Slatin, the principal of P.S. 188, on the other hand, said she was initially skeptical about paying students for doing well. Her students, many of whom live in the nearby housing projects along Avenue D, would surely welcome the money, she said, but she worried about sending the wrong message. "I didn't want to connect the notion of money with academic success," she said."

... Yes, because academic success NEVER means more money.

Students NEED to make that mental connection. Students constantly wonder, "why should I learn this?" The answer boils down to money when they become adults, a time period so far away for students that many just don't care. Putting money into their hands NOW makes that connection tangible.

And hopefully it will kill the notion that athletes are more successful in life than the well-educated people who actually run the world.

We should deregulate schools. You can do very well on a standardized test without knowing the subject.

I have a Ph.D. in education and I am working on several additional certifications to my teaching credential. I do have real degrees.

Great, so the teacher concentrates a little extra on the kids that have the best chance of return on her time/investment. The kids so far behind don't care because they aren't in a position to get it.

Why not give the money depending on class score instead of individual. You want to change the study habits of everyone....treat them as a group.

when i was in 8th grade (1991 i think) we had something similar. we got $50 per week to keep a B average and be there every day. i didnt complain.

@loquaciousmusic: Yes, well that is why the reward system should be based on some sort of performance curve with a continuously adjusted mean and variance. As the students struggle to achieve higher percentile scores, the standards will creep ever higher each year. Each student's reward should be proportional to her performance relative to that of her peers.

I agree that artificially constructed standards are a bad idea.

Maybe instead of paying each student, they could put the money back into the classrooms to get new equipment and technology that would directly benefit the kids and give the kids something they want without directly paying them. The money could be put into new and fun gym equipment, more computers or put into a fund for a "fun day" for example.

Directly paying the kids is probably bad, because who knows what they are doing with that money, and if parents know about this then they are likely pressuring kids to bring home the dough for various reasons, making school like a work environment and just adding more pressure, it gets worse if your kids aren't as smart as the rest of the class (and not from lack of effort on the parents part).

My parents gave me rewards, and said they would give me 50$ if I got into first honors in high school, and of course I did so I got the money. I got a lesser payment like 20$ if I got onto second honors. It worked for me but I wasn't working exclusively for the money. Some parents gave their kids a lot more though, I know one kid who if they got on the deans list in college would get 500$ from their parents....

As always, people think throwing money at the problem will solve it. The problem with education in the US is societal, not financial.

@keith4298: I think you missed the point. The teacher is rewarded based on the improvement of his entire class. The students are rewarded individually. If the teacher concentrates on only the most promising students, the neglected students will decline in performance and the class average will be pulled back down again. It is in the teacher's interest to help everyone improve.

@Asif5th: "Soccer moms on power trips?" Really? Those seem like mutually exclusive concepts. Attitudes like that will be why Public Education will NEVER be seen as succeeding in this country, no matter what they do, what data and evidence they give, and what they do to develop their profession.

@alhypo: Something I've noticed in my own students is that kids CAN lose interest in incentives fairly quickly, even if it's something they initially desperately wanted. If I were to offer, say, money towards their favorite gaming account, I'm fairly sure only the students who are intrinsically motivated would still want the reward after a few weeks of hard work, and the rest would have convinced themselves "It's only money." or "Only a stupid game."

I think it's a valid tactic. Schools 50-60 years ago (and back further) you got an education to further yourself; there was a tacit correlation with your learnin' and how well you were going to do. And if the kids couldn't self-motivate? The parents whooped some ass!

Well, we live in a different world now, and those tacit correlations between education and success aren't as clear. Today, our kids are surrounded by more than they need to survive, they are knee-deep in MTV, MTV2, MTV14,007, Jackass, Power Rangers, Sugary cookies, et cetera et cetera. They don't see school as a necessity to succeed, they see it as a place mommy & daddy send them to be babysat.

It may not jive with the older in the audience, but motivation is motivation, and money is today's motivation the way getting an education and getting off the farm was our great-great-grandparent's motivation (or learning to farm better and more efficiently, same thing - "success").

@Asif5th: as I enjoy neither soccer nor motherhood at the moment, I find your stereotypes trollish.

@Echodork: I agree students need motivation; but, since when was, "knowledge is its own reward," used below universities?

@alhypo:
The problem with the "relative to peers" thing is that then you can achieve prosperity by thwarting others.

It needs to be a combination or tiered to get everyone involved.

@cerbie: The trick is, and always has been, to make students enjoy learning, not to turn the phrasing back on kids when they ask why they're doing this. Knowledge is and always has been its own reward.

My students were complaining to me yesterday about how they have one teacher who NEVER teaches them anything, just writes their assignment on the board and sits behind her desk the whole period, unless the vice principal comes into the room. My kids WANT to learn history. They're FASCINATED by it. We have lively discussions in my class about what they're supposed to be learning in their history class, but the teacher has decided to withhold that joy from them.

Teacher:
Kids with good grades = continued employment
Kids with bad grades = fired

Student:
Good grades = potentially better paying easier job in the future
Bad grades = minimum wage for life

Sounds to me like the reward/punishment system is already in place.

@Echodork: I agree students need motivation; but, since when was, "knowledge is its own reward," used below universities? More like, "your obedience makes our jobs easier."

Yes, there is a difference between gold stars and free money. I would have gotten better grades in my more boring classes for money :).

I feel that if I had kids and their school gave them money for A's, it should go into a savings account rather than allowing them to spend it. I'd probably make that account for college savings as well.

@The Great Aussie Evil: You can also know the subject and do terrible on standardized testing.

Basically the point is, standardized testing has been shown time and again to be flawed beyond measure, yet is STILL used as a tool. I could list for days the scientifically proven reasons why you CANT standardize a childs ability to learn, but its pointless because people like to see numerical results and a good portion of kids just cant show that for various reasons.

But as to the topic at hand, I can easily tell you EXACTLY why its a evil system.

Special Needs Children

Subject a teacher to a class with 2-3 special needs children who are mainstreamed and 3-4 bright kids and lets see who suffers in the end. The problem in education is government involvement. The teachers are only doing right now what they are allowed to by law, and when the law says that your entire class has to meet a minimum level no matter what the disability (IE No Child Left Behind) then the smart students are going to severely suffer.

And when the law makes it illegal to separate kids based on ability, then your going to never be able to let the good students meet their level of ability, and the poor students get the help they need.

Basically what we have here in the main article is a system that from the getgo is designed to be abused. There is a very good reason both the Unions, and people who make it their lives to study how best to help children learn are up in arms over this idea of a system. Kids are going to be thrown into classrooms of teachers they want to punish, and students are going to be forced forward to learn the in and outs of a test and not be able to actually LEARN.

Back when I was a student we spend 2-3 weeks before these types of tests to help us in prepping for it. Today they spend the entire school year.

I agree that most students need incentives because learning is not its own reward to them. However, basing incentives on standardized tests is not the right way to go. Standardized tests do not test actual knowledge or critical thinking abilities (something our country sorely lacks), but instead the ability to "learn the test." Try giving rewards to students who have shown improvement in their reading or writing abilities, or who have shown they can think critically.

@Asif5th: As someone who has two teachers as parents, and a girlfriend in her third year teaching, you my friend can go to hell.

Teachers are underpaid based on the amount they go through. Too many uncaring parents see school as nothing more than a publicly funded daycare that gets their kids out of their hair for 8 hours a day, and that attitude rubs off on their disrespectful kids.

People on the outside looking in have no idea what teachers go through, they simply see the benefits that go along with the position.

Critics see nothing but the summers off, the holidays, and whatnot. They think teachers live this life of leisure. What they don't see is that teachers have to put up with alot of spoiled brat kids with no desire to learn and more of a desire to cause trouble. Teachers have to put up with parents who think they know it all, and others who don't seem to care at all yet blame the teacher when their kid stays back a year. Teachers have to go home and correct papers, come up with plans for the class, and do other duties that go along with the position. Teaching isn't a 7-3 position like people think it is, teaching is a 7 day a week commitment during the school year.

Teachers do all of this while sometimes having to hold a second job just to make ends meet, because their pay is so low by todays living standards.

Yes, teachers teach because they love it, but they sacrifice a lot in order to do what they love. Yet people like you seem to not care about those sacrifices, since you simply say, "Don't complain about your salary".

Until you've seen a genuinely good, caring person who is a teacher with a desire to help others, come home from work crying because her kids were so unruly and disrespectful to her all day, don't start talking to me about what kinds of people teachers are.

Any opportunity to throw more money in the pockets of teachers is something I applaud, as is any way to get kids more interested in furthering their education.

@cmdr.sass: That's just it: Throwing money does not help as this implies the funds are being directed carelessly. Channeling the money where it will do the most good, however, is not careless at all.

Some societal problems can be addressed financially. When you start a new job, especially at entry-level, you basically have negative productivity. The company is loosing money by taking you on, but they still pay you trusting that in the long run, you will become productive for them.

Children are rather deficient in their abilities of foresight, so we need to say to them: "Look, you may not recognize the value of doing well in school now, but trust me, it will pay dividends later on in life. Not convinced? Well, to prove it to you, I'm going to put up some cash right now as encouragement. My future well-being is dependent on your future productivity, so I'm willing to make this small investment to encourage you to do well in school."

Our willingness to pay them is not merely an incentive; it is also a demonstration of how important their educations are. Rational consumers do not just give up money for any stupid reason.

@SaraAB87: Because new fun gyms, new computers, fun days and everything you listed is pointless in terms of educating children. In fact, this is EXACTLY why public schools are such a money pit. Pools do not help teach children. I do. I need the occasional textbook, my voice, and some slides.

@smitty1123: A witty comment, but unfortunately, teachers aren't accountable for their students' bad grades in most districts I've seen. Teachers unions ensure that it's close to impossible to fire a teacher for that sort of thing. I've seen cases of sexual contact between teachers and students where the teacher has not been kept out of teaching. As for students - the "potentially better paying easier job in the future" isn't enough for kids. Especially the ones who see no future for themselves. If they had their mother on their backs every night encouraging them to study up so that they would look good to Stanford, I'm sure things would be different. Your comment just doesn't reflect reality.

When I was young we got things like pool parties and outdoor activities to reward us for behavior/working hard/testing well.

Then the lawsuits came and those went away.

Then they created gifted student rewards, letting the smarter kids study in different ways and visit museums and exhibits.

Then the PC patrol showed up, and that went way

Then the offered pizza and ice cream parties to reward us for working hard/doing extra work.

Then the calorie cops showed up and those went away.

This is what happens. Now they spend millions bringing in educational consultants who tell them basic logical things like "kids like rewards" and "full stomachs are good for learning". Meanwhile schools in poor areas get worse. Lets be honest, middle and upper class kids see the benefit of schooling by looking at their parents and those of their peers. Lower class students dont. I dont know where the numbers are now, but the when I was in school the numbers of kids who came from parents with 4 year degrees who went to college was like 100 times the number of kids whos parents didnt have degrees who went to college.

Background is the biggest determining factor of success (Ive argued that this is why minorities wound up in bad mortgages more often too). If you dont have the support system to succeed other things need to be tried.

Fantastic! - let's give kids MORE money to buy drugs and get into trouble. That would surely help them learn the skills that will enable them to be, at the very least, NORMAL FUNCTIONING ADULTS... But then again I suppose that's not one of those "rewards" that people value.

I love the law of unintended consequences.

@brent_w: really? Never? Ever? You've never seen a kid who wanted to learn martial arts, computer programming, chess/go/etc., camping and related activities, astronomy, or so on, because they actually enjoyed it?

Schooling is a wholly different animal from learning, and often one that kills the enjoyment of learning, what learning is, and how one may do it.

When my son was potty training, he was not working very hard at it - but then I had a little plastic tub filled with some new cars - along with a couple of new DVD movies that he would like - a good "pee" gets him a car. A good "poop" got him a movie. It was a good incentive to get him to learn the routine in which after awhile, the rewards kind of "disappeared" and he continued with what he learned.

Now my kids in 1st grade. First have of the school year he did really poor in spelling, and he did not want to study the spelling words at home. I now bribe him - he gets a new DS game for every A he gets on the test. So now when he does not want to study, I gently remind him what he could get if he gets an A on the test - and *poof* he is willing to study the words some. He has also been getting the A's on the test, and doing much better. And soon, like the rewards for potty time - the DS game rewards will slowly disappear and hopefully he will keep going on what he is now doing automatically.

So for schools & teachers to reward kids for doing good. Why not? Even though I think a 5-pack of candy bars would be as much as an incentive as $10-$50 for some kids.

@smitty1123:

Teacher:
Kids with good grades = continued employment
Kids with bad grades = fired

Teachers are not often fired because the kids aren't doing well. There are usually enough that do OK to make it impossible to prove that the poor students are doing poorly because of a poor teacher.

The other problem is that the greatest teacher in the world cannot possibly motivate kids with drug dealer parents who are too worried about whether dad is going come home drunk tonight and beat the crap of them to worry about homework.

The educational process is a joint effort between students, teachers and parents. Making one party responsible for the others just doesn't work.

@Asif5th: I agree!

"Their hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do... baby-sit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage. That is right. I would give them $3.00 dollars an hour and only the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time.

That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 AM to 4:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.

Now, how many do they teach in a day... maybe 30? So that's 19.5 X 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

Let's see . . .. that's $585 x 180 = $105,300 per year.

What about those special teachers and the ones with master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage just to be fair, round it off to $7.00 an hour. That would be $7 times 6-1/2 hours times 30 children times 180 days = $245,700.00 per year."