Says Stacey Priestley, a northern Indiana teacher: “My son gets money for grades. We tell him going to school and getting good grades is his job.
If he does his job well, he gets paid just like a job in the real world.”But most Americans, and many educators, still feel uncomfortable with the idea. According to the most recent national Phi Delta Kappa poll, one out of four Americans say students should be paid for their grades. There’s something about the practice that just feels. Isn’t there greater value in reading a good book than a certificate for cheese pizza? In Kentucky, where the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship provides up to $5.
A’s, parents “rip teachers” when their kid gets a C, says teacher Chris Spoonamore. But the bigger question is: Does it even work? While proponents hope those millions will help close achievement gaps, especially in poor communities where a dollar really makes a difference, research shows that the money might better be spent on the kinds of things we know can help improve student achievement, like teacher training and smaller class sizes. Rewarding Whom? Barbara Marinak, an assistant professor of education at Penn State University, says the research on monetary rewards is quite clear: They don’t work. Moreover, any kind of extrinsic reward can be dangerous. In a well- known Stanford University experiment, more than three decades old, researchers divided preschoolers into two groups: one that would get gold stars for their drawings and one that would not. Both drew enthusiastically, but when asked to draw again – without a reward – the gold- star group cut its drawing time in half.
It appeared as if they’d lost enthusiasm for the task when it didn’t come with a reward.“What we really want is for people to value the activity of learning,” University of Rochester professor Edward Deci told TIME magazine. And, other research, with young students and teenagers, show that they all perform better and work harder when the task is interesting, fun to do, and relevant to their lives.“There has to be intrinsic motivation,” says Kentucky’s Spoonamore. More recently, Harvard economist Roland Fryer, Jr., ran a $6. Washington, D. C., New York, Dallas and Chicago. In each city, the incentives looked different – with varying results. In New York, where kids were paid for good test scores, and in Chicago, where they were paid for good grades, achievement didn’t budge.
But in D. C., where kids were rewarded for a variety of tasks, including earning good grades, attending class and completing homework, some kids did marginally better on reading comprehension tests. And in Dallas, where kids got $2 for each book they read – more books were read, and reading comprehension scores significantly improved. The difference? Simply playing kids for good grades or test scores doesn’t actually give them any more skills, Fryer theorized.
The system needs to be more complicated – and more specific to the needs of children – to be effective. Similarly, a growing program of rewarding kids for passing Advanced Placement tests also has a teacher training component. The National Math and Science initiative, which has poured millions of dollars into seven states, rewards both students and teachers up to $1. In Mashpee, Massachusetts, the local union agreed that its members should accept the financial incentive — and that money is collected in an account for teacher supplies and additional training.
A recent study showed that AP enrollment in those places is up, but it’s also increasing in many schools and districts without rewards as well. Said one Mashpee student to The Cape Cod Times, “.