Reflection #8

Should Students Be Bribed to Do Well in School?

This is an article that Times Magazine writer Amanda Ripley writes about the idea of paying students money to do well in school. Amanda Ripley tells of how one student's parent presented a challenge to him to see if he could go an entire month without watching T.V. to try to end his addiction to watching so much T.V. If he could complete the challenge he would receive $200. While this student did complete the challenge and he even would not cheat by watching T.V. at friends homes. Ripley talks about how parents are always trying to get children to cooperate and that today it is through the use of bribes that children are now willing to do as they are asked. Amanda cites Roland Fryer, a Harvard economist and his study to see if bribing students in schools will help motivate them to work hard to do well in school.

Roland had a difficult start in persuading various schools and districts to allow him to create an experiment to see how students are effected through various types of incentives. Finally he was able to receive an okay in New York, Texas, and Washington D.C. to conduct these experiments, as long as parents were also okay with the idea. The data was interesting to see, for students in New York, they would receive money for the test scores. While in Washington D.C. the students would receive money based on a portfolio created of 5 different area. In Dallas the younger students would be paid based on reading a book and then taking the quiz on how well they understood the book. It turns out those students paid for their test scores this experiment failed terribly. In Washington, the scores on standardized reading tests were better, they were being paid on a routine basis. But it looks as if the children being paid for their reading books and scoring well on the quizes had the best results.

After reading this article I had some very mixed feelings about what Roland Fryer is doing. I understand the need to motivate the students to be successful in school and in life, but I don't know if I agree on the bribing with money idea. The reason being that in New York there were around 8,000 students and the cost of money paid out was 1.5 million dollars and this is only a small percentage of students in New York, let alone all the students in the entire nation. There would be no way to afford this program. Also there is the point about making students into little adults, we already expect them to work long hours on homework and to "give up" their time of play and over work them with extra activities. Why should we truly make school like a job and make the students young lives as crazy and stressful with the added pressure of "bribing" them money.

Yet on the other hand I do believe that going to school is a students "job" and it is their responsiblity to do their best. Then the question is how are we going to help motivate generations of students, who are growing up in a new type of world, to be proud of their accomplishments and to work to their highest capibility? This is a question we will always struggle with as teachers because every student is different and the ways to best help them are also different.

If you are interested in reading this article click here.