Oh and by the way, fuck you and your family.

Sincerely,

Ryan

It’s going to put a lot of pressure on teachers to give good grades, it’s going to encourage cheating, and it’s going to reward those who are already doing well and ostracize those who can’t do well no matter what (kids who aren’t that smart and/or have learning disabilites).

Secondly, psychologists have shown that rewarding behavior that’s expected is a bad idea; it teaches kids to dislike whatever activity you are incenting, because they figure if you have to reward them just to do it, it must really suck or be unpleasant. The most recent study on this shows that rewarding your kids (with TV time or dessert or whatever) to eat their veggies makes kids 300% more likely to hate vegetables.

With this policy, you’re teaching them to hate learning – or that it’s only worth doing for the sake of immediate monetary rewards. Both are negative. Kids should be taught to value learning for it’s own sake – not to mention there’s already a pretty strong monetary incentive attached to it called “earning potential.” And if they’re too dumb to care, then screw them. The world needs janitors, too (no offense to janitors).

> If pay for grades is what motivates students, I don’t want to hire them.

Thanks! That leaves them for me

Seriously though, if paying someone can guarantee they will perform well, then that’s the type of employee that I want.

Much better then the ones that need hand-holding, coddling, and “me-time” in order to motivate them.

***

Of course I can just see the next school scandal headline, “Teacher colludes with students to scam ‘Pay For Grades’ Pilot Program!”

Ah, the problem of government. I think this applies to nearly every aspect of life that government gets involved with. For instance, social security. Every intelligent person knows they ought to save money for retirement, and yet they don’t. Then government steps in and gives us a socialized retirement program.

I don’t mean to hijack the topic of this thread, but I just wanted to say that I agree with you that people should take responsibiltiy and do the things they should be doing, whether saving for retirement or studying for your exams.

I understand where the money will go, and what it will likely be spent upon. As I said earlier, my biggest concern lies within the ethics of the program, not the program itself.

You are basically rewarding a 13-15 year old kid a large sum of money for doing what they should be doing on their own.

If the program works, and I suspect it will, I would hope a large group of sponsors can raise enough funding to go national. It sounds perfect for a large group of philanthropists or corporations looking to improve their public image.

I can understand where your suggestions are coming from. But you have to remember the context of this program. The schools are trying to improve the grades of these students who, frankly, couldn’t care less about school. If you say, “If you earn A’s in school, I’ll give you $4000 for college,” many of them will just laugh at you and continue skipping school. They probably don’t plan on going to college, or at least aren’t even thinking about college, since they’re still Freshmen in high school. That reward means nothing to them. But if you give them $4000, no strings attached, knowing full well they will probably spend it on PlayStations and such, that may give them proper motivation to study in school. At least that’s a reward they can understand and relate with, a reward that is actually meaningful to them.

I’m sure I was pissed if I didn’t get my Super Mario Brother’s game exactly when I wanted, but boohoo, I got over it.

And seriously $4,000 by the end of sophomore year??? Where’s all the money I should have earned for getting good grades? Honestly I don’t think they should get any money up front. Either they should get all the money upon graduation or the money should be put towards furthering education (college, like a scholarship type program). Or better yet in a trust for after college graduation. Since, by that age, you have a better idea of how to spend money in an effective way, instead of wasting it. If they’re trying to create better and more educate people, i.e. a better society as a whole, the money shouldn’t be wasted on Playstations and brand name jeans.

Generations of kids succeeded in school up to this point. Why should they all the sudden be rewarded for what has been accomplished for decades, centuries? Won’t there be a bit of a shock once they get to college and are then paying to take classes instead of getting paid for doing well in those classes?

I also agree that this program is good, in concept at least. But the problem is once these things get too large, they become too institutional, bureaucratic, and ineffectual. There is already too much pressure on teachers to artificially inflate grades. I know several teachers who have given students well-deserved bad grades on tests, and then the parents call them, or even come to the teacher’s office, and demand the teacher give their children better grades. The teachers even get verbally abused by the parents. Nevermind that the kids didn’t even study and frankly didn’t deserve a good grade.

I can only image if now they are fighting over $50 for earning an A. Imagine all the parents that will demand better grades for their students. I can foresee a significant amount of “grade inflation” that will happen due to this program.

What is the solution? I’m not sure. I do congratulate these people on a willingness to think outside the box and come up with ingenious solutions that may work. And if it does work, good for them. But I just don’t think that it will work.

I’d have to agree now with that comment. My children aren’t school aged – but they do have to deal with cause and effect. For instance – they don’t clean their room (or help do it anyways) then they don’t get a story at bedtime. Plain and simple. And it’s effective. After so many times of not getting their story, they have finally started cleaning up – and on their own a lot of times.

My parents were never “soft” on me. I got privileges taken away all the time. The flip side is that now I get to see my brother and sister in law grow up, and their parents are the complete opposite. They “ground” them – to the house. They still get their cell phones, and the internet, and their games. Doesn’t teach them a thing. It just means that they can’t go hang out with their friends at the mall or whatever. I thank my parents for disciplining me the way they did.

Thankfully both my brother and sister in law get relatively ok grades. Not straight A’s.. but not a lot of D’s and F’s either.

The fact of the matter is, we will never have the perfect “system” down – each student is going to be different, and will it will take different ways to get them to do what they need to do.

If this program keeps kids in school who would otherwise quit and get a job, great. Hopefully it will keep them in school long enough to get over their rebellious stage.

Since the program is funded privately, no loss. I hope these private donors are also contributing to the schools in general by way of better supplies and facilities.

Bad grades? No football. No car. Sit your bum ass at home until they improve!

Take away the Xbox, the cell phones and MySpace pages, and I’m certain all this poor grades crap would work itself out.

So here is the question – are parents too lazy or too soft to deal with this issue? Are we settling for the quick fix by throwing money at the problem? Don’t we do that enough in this country already?