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Kids Score 40 Percent Higher When They Get Paid For Grades
A large number of schools participating in a pay-for-grades program have seen test scores in reading and math go up by almost 40 percentage points. The Sparks program will pay seventh-graders up to $500 and fourth-graders as much as $250 for good performance on 10 assessment tests. About two-thirds of the 59 schools in the program improved their scores by margins above the citywide average. "It's an ego booster in terms of self-worth. When they get the checks, there's that competitiveness -- 'Oh, I'm going to get more money than you next time' -- so it's something that excites them," said Rose Marie Mills, principal at MS 343 in Mott Haven. Critics, who are unaware that most college students don't become liberal arts majors, argue that paying kids corrupts the notion of learning for education's sake alone.
This is dangerous: studies have shown that when you give extrinsic motivation for something, the intrinsic motivation tends to die away.
The paper I'm thinking of first observed that children in a class had lots of fun painting for no reason. Then, they started to extrinsically reward the children for painting, and the children started to paint a lot more. Then the rewards stopped, and so did the painting.
As the link points out, there is some debate about the truth of what I just said.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect
you forgot to add #4:
In the USA public education is now just used as a tool for political indoctrination. With extremists at both ends vying to brainwash children.
"You have to get to the children when they are young and impressionable."
and #5
#5: Schools have now been regulated to substitute parents for a generation of deliquents who are incapable of parenting. Those children just get worse until they end up in high school with no sense of personal responsibility as their parents showed none.
Now teachers are being asked to change diapers for kids who's dead beat parents never bothered to teach how to use a toilet.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Having been both home-schooled and public-schooled for various parts of my education (I attended high school and elementary school, but not middle school), I can say that homeschooling is as good as the student. The "socializing" argument is easily reversed: for the outcasts (like my brother, who was teased to the point of tears on a daily basis because of his writing disability), or for those who have better things to do (I wanted to study my computer science. Learning the same elementary algebra 3 years in a row at a public elementary school just doesn't help that task along), homeschooling is a reprieve from the "socializing" that is doing a lot more harm than good.
I believe that homeschooling versus public schooling versus any other option that might be available needs to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Treating children as if they all learn in the same way, at the same pace, or with their age group just doesn't work. Homeschooling isn't for everyone. Neither are public schools. Both can be equally damaging to someone who isn't suited to the environment. And the "lack of socializing" is becoming less and less of an issue as the internet becomes more prevalent (and, there are plenty of places to go other than a school to interact with your peers. But your peers aren't always those who share your age -- as in my brother's case, or TFA's case, where the age group taunts the kid or is so far behind the kid that there's no comparison).
My $0.02. Probably biased :)