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Good grades pay off — literally

Not only is this shameful, it is also naive to think it will work for anything but the very very short term.

By Greg Toppo

Teachers have long said that success is its own reward. But these days, some students are finding that good grades can bring them cash and other gifts.

In at least a dozen states this school year, students who bring home top marks can expect more than just gratitude.

Some examples:

•Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso last week promised to give high school students as much as $110 each to improve their scores on state graduation exams.

•In New York City, about 9,000 fourth- and seventh-graders in 60 schools are eligible to win as much as $500 for improving their scores on English and math tests, given throughout the school year.

•In suburban Atlanta, a pair of schools last week kicked off a program that will pay eighth- and 11th-grade students $8 an hour for a 15-week "Learn & Earn" after-school study program (the federal minimum wage is $5.85).

In most cases, the efforts are funded privately through corporate or philanthropic donors.

The most ambitious experiment began in September, when seven states — Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington — won spots in an ExxonMobil-funded program that, in most cases, pays students $100 for each passing grade on advanced placement (AP) college-prep exams.

It's an effort to get low-income and minority students interested in the courses, says Tommie Sue Anthony, president of the Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Science.

"We still have students who are not sure of the value, who are not willing to take the courses," Anthony says. "Probably the incentives will make a difference with those students."

Gregg Fleisher of the National Math and Science Initiative, which runs the seven-state program, says the effort is modeled on a program adopted by Dallas in the 1995-96 school year that saw AP course-taking jump substantially. That program is now statewide.

While many educators would blanch at offering kids cash for good grades, Fleisher and others say the idea is simple.

"It's an incentive to get them to basically make the right decision and choose a more rigorous class," Fleisher says.

An analysis of the Texas program last month by Cornell University economist Kirabo Jackson found that it linked to a 30% rise in the number of students with high SAT and ACT scores and an 8% rise in college-going students.

Some critics say the payouts amount to little more than bribes, undermining kids' motivation to do high-quality work when they're not being paid.

"It's a strategy that helps only around the edges," says Thomas Toch, co-director of the Education Sector, a Washington think tank.

Most students in AP classes "are already internally motivated, and the opportunity to earn college credits for passing AP tests is a bigger motivator than small cash awards," Toch says.

Bob Schaeffer of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, a watchdog group, is more blunt.

"Bribing kids for higher test scores — or paying teachers bounties for their students' work — is similar to giving them steroids," he says. "Short-term performance might improve, but the long-term effects can be very damaging."






— Greg Toppo
USA Today
2008-01-28
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-01-27-grades_N.htm

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