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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.
Someone OWES my ass.
Glad it wasn't me. If I had that much cash back then it would have all been spent on pot. Smoking that much reefer would have to be bad for a developing mind... I might have become a physics major or something!
Before long children will be asking to transfer to the schools that pay the best.
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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
When some kids were getting paid for grades ($5 for a B, $10 for an A when I was a kid). My parents refused. They would tell me that it was expected of me to get good grades, and I didn't deserve a reward for doing what I was supposed to be doing anyways.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Much like the heavily fantasized notion of an idyllic suburban 50's culture, the ultra-PC "everybody wins" culture never really existed. It's a nice bogeyman, though, for people who want to drone about how much better their upbringning was than everyone else's. The worst it ever really culminated in was "participant"-style rewards like ribbons and whatnot. And it's a moot point now anyway since 90% of school time is devoted to drilling kids with standardized testing preparation.
A movement did take foot in public schools in the the early and mid 90s that emphasized self-esteem as a major factor in success, and it makes sense. If you feel bad about yourself to the point of pathology you're probably not going to strive for anything better. You can quibble about the effectiveness of specific attempts to rectify these situations, or the value in taking emphasis and public resources away from students with healthier attitudes to try and help moody kids, but stop trying to create a false history just so you have something to point a finger at in lieu of any specific concerns or solutions.
My wife has been teaching for 2 decades now and has seen every half-baked trend come and go as administrators bounce from one artificial one-size-fits-all solution to another. There's been one thing that's been consistent through it all, and one thing only: loudmouth parents who won't shut up and let schools teach. The majority of overprotectiveness and excuse-making for failure doesn't come from the schools at all, especially not now that we have NCLB and even stricter state mandates that practically demand that children be hammered mercilessly with bullet points regardless of their performance.
The majority of feel-good nonsense and excuse for repeated or consistent failure emanates from, and has always emanated from, parents.
I know, it's a joke, but you'll probably be disappointed. Everyone you'll be competing with has a degree, the subject of the degree and the magnitude are now the dominate forces (even when ridiculous). In some areas right now they argue you need a PhD to do silicon verification, when in fact I think you probably don't need any degree, at all to do what the job ACTUALLY requires. It's just a matter of having a huge number of equally qualified applicants after the same job.
The problem with this, for all of you who have jobs, is not about some wishy washy bullshit about "the joy of learning", it's about manipulating metrics for maximum return. It's not about how much you learned or how well you can apply your knowledge, but how to appear best on paper to get the paycheck. When the rubber meets the road, are you any more qualified to do what you say you can do? We've all known people who groomed that 4.0 GPA (or close to it), who didn't amount to anything or who got washed ashore when they jumped in the ocean.
To be fair, it is a very applicable life skill to large corporation life, and we all have to do it from time to time. But if you look around your organizations and note the flaws, defects and absolutely mind-bogglingly braindead behavior that somehow persist...behind each one of those is usually some bogus metric that says "we're great!". The road to hell is paved with broken metrics.
To the present day businessman, nothing else matters but making money today. Thus any short term manipulation that demonstrably shows profit, is a good behavior. To almost any other profession, including responsible businessmen, you have to be sustainable through at least your career, or however long it takes to return what you owe, ride out tough times, and guarantee your future. Teaching kids how to act in their short term best interests exclusively is not at all the right way to go.
OK, not to rain on this parade, but....isn't our educational system pretty much predicated on cramming as much info into your head only to have you barf it back out on a test, never to use it again without looking it up?
No one seems to be asking the deeper questions:
Why do we have to pay kids to learn/study?
What are the specific flaws in the system?
What are we testing for?
What do we want to test for?
Are the testing methods adequate to the task?
Polly want a cracker?
I'm a happy pessimist. I expect and prepare for the worst, when it doesn't happen I am pleasantly surprised.
Rich kids that go to public school already know what this is all about.
When one is artificially paid for a commodity that is normally without value, the acquisition of that commodity for sale is just good business.
In other words I get paid 10 bucks for an A, I well pay you 5 bucks to get it for me, and make a tidy sum, or "buy your classwork from your poor student friends for better grades".
Oh well at least they are learning something! America's future at work!
It's a poor excuse for a study. The underlying issues in (USA) public education today are:
#1 - We don't stratify. In other words, we uniformly put the slowest idiots in with everyone else, rather than putting the brightest in one class and on down the line.
#2 - classes move at the pace of the slowest idiot. The dumb shits hold up class, the mediocre kids learn nothing as well, and the smart kids get so bored (waiting for socially-promoted 8th-grade retards to learn stuff they already mastered in 2nd grade) that they start acting up.
#3 - real standardized testing - you know, anything that might require the kids to have learned something and prove it - has vanished. Between that and social promotion, there is no expectation on the kids to achieve anything, despite clear and repeated case studies and larger-scale studies proving that holding kids to high expectations works. But since standardized testing started to mirror social problems - read: certain ethnic groups (black, illegal immigrant, etc) with near-zero family structure and a subculture that sees intelligence as race treason, were showing very poorly in the standardized tests - more and more of the tests have either been dumbed down to the point of uselessness, or have simply been done away with entirely.
Critics, who are unaware that most college students don't become liberal arts majors,
If you're going to offer the kids money, that's fine. One motivator works as well as another - when I was a kid, for example, a bunch of local restaurants chipped in and gave free meal coupons to any kid who made the honor roll.
First, though, you have to fix your metrics. The fact that they "doubled" achievement on the tests means little when the skills indicated by a "passing" grade on the newly-rebuilt "test" would, 20 years ago, have failed 2-3 grades lower.
This will put even more pressure on teachers to teach to the tests. Especially in low-income areas (where these trials are being done), teachers want their students to get what they're worth.
Kids aren't "getting smarter" (by the way, what does "smart" entail?) They're learning to play the game that is the educational system.
Also, if the sponsoring organizations can afford to pay each kid $250-500, where the heck are they getting those funds, and why aren't they giving it to inner-city schools in the first place?
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -- Albert Einstein
In the U.S. good education does not equal higher pay. Maybe it did at one time, but certainly it is no longer true.
I would argue that the getting a degree from the right combination of institutions is the gateway to higher pay. Two examples to prove my point.
4.0 from public schools ==> transfer into 2nd tier State University==>Enter workforce with 3.8 GPA and some lesser-known interships. This combination is not likely to end in higher pay. Rather, the student will probably make average wages in the first 5 years. What she does from there is up to her, but there are meaningful limits to the probability she would end up the most rewarded.
4.0 from private school attended by elites ==> transfer into 1st tier University==>Enter workforce with 3.8 GPA and some well-known interships. This combination is most likely to end in higher pay because they are most likely to be hired by companies that pay more in the first 5 years.
More importantly the 'pull yourself up by your own bootstraps' dream so often told in the U.S. has vanished due to the enormous costs of attempting the latter. This is part of the enormous class disparities that have grown in the last 20 years.
So, pay your kid to earn good grades at the end of each year. It's very far into **their** sense of the future.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Can you really blame kids for being too short-sighted though?
It's one thing to blame a 40-year-old who doesn't plan ahead, it's quite another to blame a 12-year-old.
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You collect at the poker table. I hear having all 4 of the 8's is a really good hand. Of course, as in school, having all four A's is better, so avoid playing nerds.
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? ]=-
If you're going to offer the kids money, that's fine.
No, it's not fine, it will have terrible long-term effects. This is called behavioral/operant conditioning, which, in the case of children, will become deeply entrenched into the personality that they will develop as they mature.
Don't confuse this with parents who give their children extra allowance if they get good grades. When the reinforcement comes from the same entity which is providing the challenge (in this case, the schools), it becomes a far more mechanical, "pavlovian" pattern. I seriously hope that some psychologists are monitoring this program.
This isn't just a matter of culture (as others mention on this thread), this could have long-term effects that are completely unpredictable.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
Who said anything about learning? This is for grades. I suspect there are some underpaid teachers willing to accept kickbacks for adjusting a few grades.
English Lit.
In some areas right now they argue you need a PhD to do silicon verification
In my experience, nerdy professors are far worse at spotting fake boobs than your average joe.
Bull Hockey.
The "Secret" to raising smart kids is to instill in them a work ethic. I don't see how this is any different. Providing incentive to work harder at a task and achieve results, rather than simply stumble into them due to your 'natural talent' is pretty much the default story of how people become successful.
Your arguement seems to boil down to "convincing kids to work harder is bad because kids who work harder will look better than kids who don't". Of course kids who work harder are going to come off better, that's sort of the point. Given the rest of your comment is a rambling complaint against people who test well but can't perform, I don't exactly understand how you could possibly bitch about a method which actually convinces the children to perform well so you can accurately test them at their real performance level rather than at their "I could give a shit, why should I care what my score is." level.
If a school pays kids for good grades, wouldn't they naturally transition to expecting to get a raise at work for good performance ?
:)
Whereas with parents paying for good grades would either leave kids feeling like they've gone as far as they can when their parents die, or depending on the government for being rewarded when they do good at work.
Could you explain the problem to me please ?
I really don't want to read some article you've dug up on the Internet either, I actually want to read the explanation in your own words, as you understand it.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
That would be silicone verification. I don't believe a degree is required for that. It also happens to be a very hands-on field.
And even without corruption it isn't as if a grade actually reflects how well the material was learned. Grades reflect all sorts of things that have nothing to do with education, like dedication and the ability to brown nose the teacher. Teachers reward those who repeat what the book rather than those who demonstrate actual understanding of the material.
In many schools they remove credit from students grades for frequent absence, frequent tardiness, or as a result of in school suspension. Those things have no impact on whether the student understands the material taught but school funding is determined largely by attendance metrics. Any student who fully understands the material taught in a class, at any level of education from K to Masters should receive an A in the class if the purpose of a class is for students to learn the material and the grade is a measure of how well they have learned it.
WTF?
How is this worse than kids not learning in the first place?
Most kids see no value in education because they're kids.
Paying them, not only prepares them for life, it stresses the value of hard work and provides real results for that work.
Kids learn both their curriculum and that working hard provides tangible returns.
They're using their grammar skills there.
They would be made fun of at school, and systematically taught that they are not as good as the other kids
Well, that's the problem right there. See, we need to teach the Alphas and the Betas to be grateful to the Deltas for doing all the hard work, and teach the Deltas that they're very important and that they should be grateful to the Alphas and the Betas for making all those hard decisions.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
That depends if you think that knowledge gained is the only purpose of school and I think you would be hard pressed to make such an argument.
If you're trying to produce people who can work together and be productive members of society then it makes sense to dock people that not followed rules which directly relate to that. In-class suspensions for disruptive behavior makes a lot of sense to me in this regard although I don't consider hugging in the hallway to be disruptive.
Much of the business world involves finding constructive tasks to perform when you are bored out of your skull so it makes sense that school would discourage disruptive behavior even if the student proves that he understand the materials being taught.
Do I think schools should be this way? I don't know, society has a way of filtering out people that are destructive or at least finding creative ways to embrace the destructive nature of particular individuals. I don't think students should be robots but I also think disrupting a class is unacceptable so I guess I like it but would favor relaxing many rules that were only enacted because a few people were uncomfortable with the setting such as the banning of hugging.
I don't know, society has a way of filtering out people that are destructive or at least finding creative ways to embrace the destructive nature of particular individuals
Where else would we find police and armed forces recruits?
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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Do you actually have a science, computer science or engineering degree? Except for the few who a) go into teaching or b) are the top 2% and land a reasearch posting ~90% of your university course load is completely unused on graduation. Of the 48 terms of class (4yrs @ 6 courses/term, 2 terms/yr), I think 6 (programming*2, comp architecture, sw engineering, digital communications * 2) apply to my top-paying telecom programming job.
Those who went into hw design (even more salary than programming) only use 4 courses...
The biggest waste was the 8 terms of advanced calculus. Unless you're doing primary research into magnetic field theory, knowing how to derive the LaPlace and other transforms is something you cram for, get your A, then gleefully drown in a several tankards of post-graduation partying.
When I first started home schooling my son, I went into a 'home school store' where they were giving a little seminar on how to legally home school. After it was over, the owner of the store came over and talked to me. I had flagged her as a wacko when she tried to convince me that the school system was specifically designed to do exactly what you describe. Since then, those that have tried to convince me that home schooling is a bad idea, almost always end up falling back on the whole "but kids need to 'socialized' to fit into society" line of reasoning. It's a little creepy how the general public whole heartily agrees with the "wackos".
You gave us the answer already. If a child is properly socially adjusted, he or she will immediately shun those peers who don't help the group in some way, and those peers will either learn to adjust or they will be left behind. Society is all about group function, and a classroom ought to be a reflection of that. The issue is that instead of allowing children to partake in a society inside the classroom the same way they would outside it and to punish each other for transgressions, we have raised the THINK OF THE CHILDREN banner to protect the outliers and denied the classroom society its ability to function normally. Then we put a harried, poorly educated single adult in front of the class and expect that adult to moderate everything in order to produce the same social outcomes that the class would naturally grow into on its own (with guidance, of course - and with proper modeling from the outside world. One more great reason to go on field trips and community service outings is to widen the range of social experiences a child has!).
Now, I don't advocate leaving kids behind just because they don't "fit in". I think everyone needs to have some place to fit... but if a child is having issues in a regular classroom it'd be nice if there were more alternatives than special education or juvenile detention centers. I've known kids who in 4th or 5th grade, having come from working-class homes, decided that they wanted to continue the blue-collar tradition. It's not a great choice but it would make a lot more sense to help the kid understand that by sending them out to apprentice themselves for a year with a tradesman or trade school (and maybe they will like it - and there's nothing wrong with training more plumbers and mechanics!) than it does to do what we currently do: "It's school! You NEED it! You'll never get by in the outside world with a 5th grade education, so shut up and do your homework!"
Education is the cornerstone of democracy and it's fantastic that we are setting our bar "high" (yeah, right) for our most precious resource - our future leaders. However, not everyone can be president. Why not encourage trade work and usable skills to help kids realize why reading and math are necessary, instead of pretending they're useless as long as they're students? As a side effect, I'm pretty sure kids who are proud of what they're doing in school ALSO get better grades, plus gain better understanding... and you don't have to bribe anyone!
95% of what you learned in school was worthless?
So sad.
You know, I did a computing degree in Computer Science. I graduated in 1976.
I reckon I used most of it. Yup, even COBOL.
But what I learned, most essentially, was nothing about computing, as such.
I learned how to solve problems.
I learned how to learn new things.
I learned how to find things from book and people (no Internet then) and use that.
I learned how to - learn.
And it sounds like you did too.
From your parents, your friends, your school teachers, your university education you learned how to find out about your world and solve problems.
On the way, you probably picked up a stack of things you might not think useful - the capital of France, the name of the highest mountain in the world, the currency used in Germany (oops, that's changed - are you keeping up? .. I suspect you are). And you learned to stay up to date. This is good. You are a much more interesting person to talk to than someone who knows none of those things (not necessarily nicer, but probably more interesting).
Not educating people has been tried - it doesn't go well. In general, the countries that give the best education to the highest proportion of its citizens tend to be at the top of the human development index - and that that do badly end up at the bottom. Coincidence? No, I don't think so. (USA is not at the top - 15th - sad, isn't it? [Disclaimer - I live in Australia, at 4th position, so I'm biased])
Learning for a reason - perhaps not. No. I mean, there just aren't that many people that speak Latin, for example, but it is still fairly widely learned.
Again, what is learning about? If you learn just one thing you are going to do badly. When I studied my degree, the logical thing to do would have been to learn COBOL. Just COBOL. That's not what happened - and my life is far richer than it would have been.
So, keep learning. Don't decry your past learning - you are a student all your life.
"Cats like plain crisps"
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 :)