What motivates you to do the right thing? What motivates you to learn? No, this isn’t a surprise college application or a pop quiz, but rather a question that needs to be asked in light of various financial incentive programs being implemented by the city in an attempt to aid impoverished and minority groups.
The first of the three programs in question targets younger students and their parents. The children could earn up to $500 per year for doing well on standardized tests, while their parents could earn varying amounts for having insurance, keeping a job, and attending parent-teacher conferences. While the idea of training through positive reinforcement works well with pets, it does not seem like something that should have to be done when it comes to raising one’s children and being involved in their studies. The city has raised $53 million through private funding for this program, which will be tested in poor and minority neighborhoods and is modeled after similar setups in Mexico and some parts of the United States. In Dallas, for example, there are schools in which students earn $2 for each book they read. The money may be sorely needed by some families, but those funds should not be disseminated in a manner that teaches children that education is not worth their time alone.
The concept of performance-based pay (something that has reared its head in relation to the teachers’ contract as well) is extended through high school by the second program, which will pay students for performing well on Advanced Placement exams. A three, four or five on the test can net a student at a participating school $500, $750, or $1,000, respectively. Like the previous program, this is intended to motivate children to learn, but instead seems to motivate them to cram for or even cheat on an assessment. The monetary rewards are not tied to academic achievements aside from the one test. Again, the program is privately funded, but there are better ways to spend the $1 million the hedge fund involved plans to pay out during the first year. Rather than focusing on, as Chancellor Joel Klein put it, the “critical goal of increasing the number of students who succeed on Advanced Placement tests” by rewarding certain students in select schools, the money could be used to benefit every student in the system.
The final program is still only a possibility, but it is still very interesting. A plan is under consideration that would give free cell phones to various students, with airtime being contingent upon some unspecified standard of performance. This idea is crippled by the same issue as the other two: it is simply an artificial way to motivate students to learn, something that should have been accomplished via the dedication of quality teachers, the voluntary involvement of parents, and positive role models in the academic world. Rather than working on any of these, the city is using private funding to grossly distort the priorities of the millions of students it serves.
Improving the education system and the success of the students is undoubtedly an important goal. However, it needs to be done in a manner that benefits everyone involved and truly gets the students excited about learning. As of now, the city plans to get a select few students excited about making money from filling in bubbles. That needs to change.
