Money Talks Or Discipline Walks! Should We Pay Students To Learn?

[sidneyworld]

Placing the value of money over the value of integrity and personal achievement is the most current message we are sending to our children in this country. And it's working. It's working because of the disproportion of wealth in crime especially within inner city areas, and the utter lack of parental supervision and motivation which enables the temptation to get involved in easy money for vulnerable kids who are by all means easy targets. Crime is the cash cow these days.

Cash for Grades
April 30, 2008
By Kathy McManus
Comments (45)
Education opens many doors.

But should the main one be at the bank?

School districts throughout the country are increasingly paying students for coming to class, taking tests, and improving their scores as part of controversial incentive programs known as “cash for grades.”

In Baltimore, high school students who make the grade can make some money—up to $110 for raising their scores on state assessment tests.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, passing students can turn a school day into pay day, earning $300 if they attend 90% of their classes for the year.

And near Atlanta, eighth and eleventh graders who take part in a special after-school study program are paid $8 an hour—more than the
minimum wage in most states.

Supporters of earning while learning point to increased attendance and higher test scores at underperforming schools where no other form of educational motivation has worked. “We’re in competition with the streets,” said one Bronx junior high school principal of her students. “They can go out there and make $50 illegally any day of the week. We have to do something to compete with that.”

But critics of the programs—many of which are privately funded—say the payments are simply bribes, and that using money as a motivator sends the wrong message to kids about their responsibility to learn.

Would George Washington Carver have come up with his inventions in horticulture if someone had “bribed him?” asked one critic. Would Marie Curie have been inspired to spend long hours in the lab? “What kind of message do we give unmotivated kids,” he wondered, “when we give them something they never earned?”

Tell us what you think: Should schools pay students to learn? Is learning all the way to the bank responsible?

Cash for Grades — The Responsibility Project

Anne Marie

 

[Xenophon]

No.

 

[Big Black Dog]

My folks never gave me money for getting good grades in school. They did, however, beat my butt if I didn't get good grades. It was a pretty fair arrangement. I'd get good grades and they would lay off the butt... Seemed to work out pretty well back in the old days. Guess spanking a kids ass for not getting good grades is sort of out of style these days. Wonder if it would still work????

 

[sidneyworld]

My folks never gave me money for getting good grades in school. They did, however, beat my butt if I didn't get good grades. It was a pretty fair arrangement. I'd get good grades and they would lay off the butt... Seemed to work out pretty well back in the old days. Guess spanking a kids ass for not getting good grades is sort of out of style these days. Wonder if it would still work????

In a politically correct society, that would be considered a form of child abuse. Go figure.

Anne Marie

 

[Luissa]

no! Shit I pay to learn right now.
There is already a problem with children and teenagers these days who think they are entitled to everything. They think they should get an award for everything they and we should feel lucky that they have graced us with their presence.

 

[Smartt33]

Education has it's own awards. Those awards are worth far more than any amount of money.

 

[Angel Heart]

I don't think it should be through the government. I think if your going to use this as a reward it needs to come from someone close to the child. My dad made a deal with me when I was in high school. For every A he'd give me $100, B for $50, nothing for C, I'd owe him $50 for every D, and would owe $100 for every F. I never got a report card lower than a B after that.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Why can't students understand that education has its own rewards? If a child doesn't know that education will open doors and make returns that are not necessarily financial, the parent has failed his/her job. As a child, I knew that my primary job was to go to school and do well. Paying someone to go to school is plain wrong.

 

[RodISHI]

It is a way to subjugate the child's mind early on by a socialized educational system.

 

[stf410]

I do not support the concept of paying students to go to school. The institutions that are paying these students are not preparing them to pursue higher education. It appears to me that the intention is to pay the students to finish high school so that the alarming statistics of high school drop-outs will decline. However, most of the students who are paid to go to high school will have no interest in attending College or University, since there are no financial rewards for their attendance.

 

[Animal]

I do not support the concept of paying students to go to school. The institutions that are paying these students are not preparing them to pursue higher education. It appears to me that the intention is to pay the students to finish high school so that the alarming statistics of high school drop-outs will decline. However, most of the students who are paid to go to high school will have no interest in attending College or University, since there are no financial rewards for their attendance.

Maybe not while they're in college, but they can still make more money with a college degree or some other kind of post-secondary education than they can with only a high school diploma. That should get emphasized to them.

 

[Unkotare]

.