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Money for Study and your Chicks for Free

ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
edited January 2008 in Debate and/or Discourse
So I was listening to an interview last night on NPR with a prominent education thinker who died recently and he said something that I thought was great. He said, "children work for the same reason adults work" to get some kind of reward. In his own life he had worked very hard as a child because he wanted to go to college and at that point only about 6% of Americans were getting in.

He was bemoaning the fact that getting into college no longer motivates children because no matter how bad a student you are you can almost always find some college that will take you.

So the thought occurred to me this morning - why not pay kids to go to school? Every week they could get a paycheck for between zero and $50 depending on how well they perform as students in terms of attending class, behaving well, doing homework etc.

So I checked to see how much that would cost. Let's say you start paying kids seventh grade. In my state of New Hampshire we have 36 weeks of school and around 100,000 kids in 7-12. So if the system is set up so the average kid makes $30 per week the total cost per year of the program would be $108 million dollars - which is roughly 6% of what New Hampshire spends on education ever year. It seems affordable enough.

Basically I think this would motivate kids and maybe even change the dynamic that sometimes occurs where kids who get good grades are picked on. Parents would most likely insist that some portion of the money go into savings for college, so it would help with the ridiculous cost of that.

So what do you guys think of that?

Shinto on
«13

Posts

  • PusciferPuscifer Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Shinto wrote: »

    So I checked to see how much that would cost. Let's say you start paying kids seventh grade. In my state of New Hampshire we have 36 weeks of school and around 100,000 kids in 7-12. So if the system is set up so the average kid makes $30 per week the total cost per year of the program would be $108 million dollars - which is roughly .06% of what New Hampshire spends on education ever year. It seems affordable enough.


    Only .06% of their education spending a year? That number seems really off.

    Puscifer on
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  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    Puscifer wrote: »
    Shinto wrote: »

    So I checked to see how much that would cost. Let's say you start paying kids seventh grade. In my state of New Hampshire we have 36 weeks of school and around 100,000 kids in 7-12. So if the system is set up so the average kid makes $30 per week the total cost per year of the program would be $108 million dollars - which is roughly .06% of what New Hampshire spends on education ever year. It seems affordable enough.


    Only .06% of their education spending a year? That number seems really off.

    Statemaster says the yearly spending is 1.7 billion.

    Shinto on
  • jotatejotate Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    I don't think kids (for the most part) have an accurate idea of what the value of a dollar actually is. Paying them $40 a week would complicate that.

    I'd guess New Hampshire spends a little more on education than states where motivation and better education is in even greater need.

    I can hear Republicans everywhere shitting a brick.

    College is still not a cheap endeavor regardless of whether or not you get accepted with your 1.8 GPA to Joemamatown Community College. In that sense, there's still some exclusivity involved. You'd still have to work hard to just be there. And JCC isn't exactly the same quality and respectable education you'd get at a school that would laugh at your below average test scores.

    jotate on
  • jotatejotate Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Shinto wrote: »
    Puscifer wrote: »
    Shinto wrote: »

    So I checked to see how much that would cost. Let's say you start paying kids seventh grade. In my state of New Hampshire we have 36 weeks of school and around 100,000 kids in 7-12. So if the system is set up so the average kid makes $30 per week the total cost per year of the program would be $108 million dollars - which is roughly .06% of what New Hampshire spends on education ever year. It seems affordable enough.


    Only .06% of their education spending a year? That number seems really off.

    Statemaster says the yearly spending is 1.7 billion.

    108 million / 1.7 billion = .06 or 6%

    Not .06%.

    jotate on
  • PusciferPuscifer Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Shinto wrote: »
    Puscifer wrote: »
    Shinto wrote: »

    So I checked to see how much that would cost. Let's say you start paying kids seventh grade. In my state of New Hampshire we have 36 weeks of school and around 100,000 kids in 7-12. So if the system is set up so the average kid makes $30 per week the total cost per year of the program would be $108 million dollars - which is roughly .06% of what New Hampshire spends on education ever year. It seems affordable enough.


    Only .06% of their education spending a year? That number seems really off.

    Statemaster says the yearly spending is 1.7 billion.

    That probably includes post-secondary insitutions too. Now I see why the budget is that high.

    What's Statemaster? Time for Google, methinks. Sounds like a handy site.

    Puscifer on
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  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Would this income be taxed? Would this replace other funds students/children currently have access to?

    Aldo on
  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    I don't know if they understand the value of money, but I think they would want it, which is sufficient to the purpose.

    Shinto on
  • DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    It's an interesting concept, though the implementation would be a nightmare at first.

    Though, now that I think about it, since I left school, they've developed online grade reveals to parents and guardians (not just end of semester stuff, like every quiz and test and paper), and that was one of my sister's motivations for getting straight A's.

    Honestly, though, what you're talking about would involve nothing less than a complete re-evaluation of our educational priorities, and Americans HATE honest societal re-evaluation.

    Dracomicron on
  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    I'm all for incentives.

    Loren Michael on
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  • jotatejotate Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Doing well in school already gets them money in the way of grants and scholarships. No parent would let their kid keep the money they make from the school, they'd all put it into a savings account for college. And then the amount of that account would take away from any need-based funding they would've otherwise received.

    jotate on
  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    jotate wrote: »
    108 million / 1.7 billion = .06 or 6%

    Not .06%.

    O yeah, it's early in the morning. I am accordingly embarrassed.

    In any case, still an affordable program.

    Shinto on
  • whitey9whitey9 Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    If I had to make a list of the top 20 things that could fix the education system, this would not be on it. It's not the worst idea in the world, but we have much larger fish to fry that could make a huge amount of difference in the quality of education (NCLB).

    Plus I'm pretty sure the teachers would riot when they realize that their students are collectively making more than they are*. Also, when you reward kids to do something, like.. giving them money to play video games, and then you take away that reward, they cut back on playing video games to a shocking degree. This is why electrician's houses are always not wired quite right.

    I'd like to see it happen, maybe even in a small setting, just to see the results. Low income children tend to do worse because the parents don't help them out at home, and if the child was bringing home a little paycheck, they may give them some more attention. Which sounds really fucked up and awful, but if it works, who cares.

    *You would think that the primary concern for most teachers is the advancement of their students. You couldn't be more wrong.

    whitey9 on
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  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    jotate wrote: »
    Doing well in school already gets them money in the way of grants and scholarships. No parent would let their kid keep the money they make from the school, they'd all put it into a savings account for college. And then the amount of that account would take away from any need-based funding they would've otherwise received.

    I don't think it is true that all parents would appropriate the entire sum for college savings. I'm sure almost all parents would allow their children to enjoy some of the money they earned in order to reinforce the good behavior.

    In any case, I fail to see that even if the entire amount of a little over $7,000 is saved this would cripple a child's ability to obtain the financial aid necessary to attend college.

    Shinto on
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Also: how would this income be determined? I already hate the current culture of GRADES GRADES GRADES. There should be more to school than doing tests.

    Aldo on
  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    whitey9 wrote: »
    If I had to make a list of the top 20 things that could fix the education system, this would not be on it. It's not the worst idea in the world, but we have much larger fish to fry that could make a huge amount of difference in the quality of education (NCLB).

    Plus I'm pretty sure the teachers would riot when they realize that their students are collectively making more than they are*. Also, when you reward kids to do something, like.. giving them money to play video games, and then you take away that reward, they cut back on playing video games to a shocking degree. This is why electrician's houses are always not wired quite right.

    I'd like to see it happen, maybe even in a small setting, just to see the results. Low income children tend to do worse because the parents don't help them out at home, and if the child was bringing home a little paycheck, they may give them some more attention. Which sounds really fucked up and awful, but if it works, who cares.

    *You would think that the primary concern for most teachers is the advancement of their students. You couldn't be more wrong.

    I'm pretty sure that teachers make more than $30 per week.

    I think this would make my top twenty, if only because it is cheaper and easier to implement than other proposals that I can think of.

    Shinto on
  • Not SarastroNot Sarastro __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    Shinto wrote: »
    I don't know if they understand the value of money, but I think they would want it, which is sufficient to the purpose.

    Actually, the difference between their valuing of $30 per week and the extra work required to get that money would be what might cause problems.

    My instinct is that you would just widen divisions, with those kids who work hard or are smart enough to do well without effort happily being rewarded, and those kids who have to put in a lot of effort for little reward getting pissed off. Similar studies of such reward structures suggest that you just entrench differences: you would get a some kids at the top trying a little harder to get full rewards, and a some kids at the bottom deciding that the paltry $5 they get for trying quite a lot harder is unfair, and do even less than previously. I'm not at home so I can't find the book I remember these from, but I understand it was a pretty common phenomenon if anyone else knows of some figures.

    I don't know, however, what the effect would be across the board, whether it would raise performance. IE it might make the curve less equal, but nonetheless raise it as a whole.

    Not Sarastro on
  • PicardathonPicardathon Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Wait, if we're paying more kids to just go to college, why wouldn't they just go to the community college?
    This wouldn't create higher education, this would create a new group of kids who work at the minimum possible level to get the cash. A college diploma and any possible knowledge gained from such an experience would be accidental.

    Picardathon on
  • jotatejotate Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    I remember in 6th grade when I got an F in Reading. My mother went ballistic on that teacher. I can only imagine what would've happened if money was involved.

    How about this for an argument against it? The price of drugs will *skyrocket.*

    jotate on
  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    Aldo wrote: »
    Also: how would this income be determined? I already hate the current culture of GRADES GRADES GRADES. There should be more to school than doing tests.

    I don't know.

    Usually the problems associated with testing regimes involve the incentives it places on teachers. They mold the curriculum to the test etc.

    This would be incentives for the children. I would presume that no such distortion would take place.

    Although I can see children deprioritizing school work which is for some reason not involved in their pay evaluation.

    Shinto on
  • jotatejotate Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Shinto wrote: »
    I'm pretty sure that teachers make more than $30 per week.

    Teachers in general are under paid. I'm pretty sure that the school paying their 20 students each $30 per week would piss them off.

    jotate on
  • ScikarScikar Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    jotate wrote: »
    I don't think kids (for the most part) have an accurate idea of what the value of a dollar actually is. Paying them $40 a week would complicate that.

    I'd guess New Hampshire spends a little more on education than states where motivation and better education is in even greater need.

    I can hear Republicans everywhere shitting a brick.

    College is still not a cheap endeavor regardless of whether or not you get accepted with your 1.8 GPA to Joemamatown Community College. In that sense, there's still some exclusivity involved. You'd still have to work hard to just be there. And JCC isn't exactly the same quality and respectable education you'd get at a school that would laugh at your below average test scores.

    One reason why they don't understand the value of money though is that they don't have any. I think this could help.

    There are some schemes like this in the UK already. I don't think they start as early as Shinto's idea (in fact if my understanding is right they start where his idea ends) but here's a link anyway: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4118840.stm

    Scikar on
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  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    Wait, if we're paying more kids to just go to college, why wouldn't they just go to the community college?
    This wouldn't create higher education, this would create a new group of kids who work at the minimum possible level to get the cash. A college diploma and any possible knowledge gained from such an experience would be accidental.

    The idea is to pay kids to go to grades 7-12, not to college.

    Shinto on
  • whitey9whitey9 Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Shinto wrote: »
    whitey9 wrote: »
    If I had to make a list of the top 20 things that could fix the education system, this would not be on it. It's not the worst idea in the world, but we have much larger fish to fry that could make a huge amount of difference in the quality of education (NCLB).

    Plus I'm pretty sure the teachers would riot when they realize that their students are collectively making more than they are*. Also, when you reward kids to do something, like.. giving them money to play video games, and then you take away that reward, they cut back on playing video games to a shocking degree. This is why electrician's houses are always not wired quite right.

    I'd like to see it happen, maybe even in a small setting, just to see the results. Low income children tend to do worse because the parents don't help them out at home, and if the child was bringing home a little paycheck, they may give them some more attention. Which sounds really fucked up and awful, but if it works, who cares.

    *You would think that the primary concern for most teachers is the advancement of their students. You couldn't be more wrong.

    I'm pretty sure that teachers make more than $30 per week.

    I think this would make my top twenty, if only because it is cheaper and easier to implement than other proposals that I can think of.

    whitey9 on
    llcoolwhitey.png
  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    jotate wrote: »
    Shinto wrote: »
    I'm pretty sure that teachers make more than $30 per week.

    Teachers in general are under paid. I'm pretty sure that the school paying their 20 students each $30 per week would piss them off.

    Maybe.

    Maybe they would appreciate the improved work environment they stepped into every day if kids had a stake in showing up, behaving and doing their work. Which is what would happen if the thing worked.

    If the thing didn't work, then there is a bigger more obvious reason not to do it than teachers being dissatisfied. Like that it doesn't work.

    Shinto on
  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    Shinto wrote: »
    I don't know if they understand the value of money, but I think they would want it, which is sufficient to the purpose.

    Actually, the difference between their valuing of $30 per week and the extra work required to get that money would be what might cause problems.

    My instinct is that you would just widen divisions, with those kids who work hard or are smart enough to do well without effort happily being rewarded, and those kids who have to put in a lot of effort for little reward getting pissed off. Similar studies of such reward structures suggest that you just entrench differences: you would get a some kids at the top trying a little harder to get full rewards, and a some kids at the bottom deciding that the paltry $5 they get for trying quite a lot harder is unfair, and do even less than previously. I'm not at home so I can't find the book I remember these from, but I understand it was a pretty common phenomenon if anyone else knows of some figures.

    I don't know, however, what the effect would be across the board, whether it would raise performance. IE it might make the curve less equal, but nonetheless raise it as a whole.

    That's not a bad point.

    I wonder if there is any way to surmount that particular difficulty. Improvement bonuses or larger relative payoffs toward the bottom of the scale.

    Shinto on
  • durandal4532durandal4532 Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    On a small scale, many people do already do this for their kids. But incentives can demotivate students who actually enjoy learning. They start to think "I want to learn because I want cash" instead of "I want to learn so I can be an astronomer/doctor/lawyer/teacher". Cash incentives would also be useless for some kids, the really rich ones who don't need it, and so overriding for the poorer kids that it would be their job to take the easiest course possible so they could get enough to pay for dinner.

    It's an interesting idea, but I really don't think it makes sense on the grade-school level.

    durandal4532 on
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  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Should give the teachers petty cash to distribute to productive, inquisitive students who show initiative and attentiveness.

    Loren Michael on
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  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    whitey9 wrote: »
    collectively making more than they are[/B]

    ITT I fail both reading and math.

    I guess I should start looking for janitorial work.:P

    Shinto on
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Thinking it over some more: biggest problem would be that it's not the *children* who will want to work harder, but the parents who want their children to make the most money.

    At the moment the only parents doing this to their children are the ones who value a good education for their children or the prestige that comes along with having a "smart kid". If there's money to be earned, I fear even more parents will force their children to pour all their time into studying.

    I dunno, the idea of little kids making money sounds like something that might work if the parents would not be greedy assholes.

    Aldo on
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Should give the teachers petty cash to distribute to productive, inquisitive students who show initiative and attentiveness.
    I got a sticker from the teacher if I did my best. It made me proud and the other kids would be jealous of me.

    Aldo on
  • ScikarScikar Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Actually, I should mention that the UK schemes start at age 16, up to which school is compulsory anyway. Quote from another study is "While you are on the scheme, it shows you a different side to the school work. I saw that I needed to pay more attention and so currently do." The only quotes from teachers are regarding the students' results rather than the money itself though.

    Scikar on
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  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    Should give the teachers petty cash to distribute to productive, inquisitive students who show initiative and attentiveness.

    You'd have to balance that against a fear of them playing favorites or abusing it some other way I'd say.

    @durandal4532 - I think that it is fair to be concerned about kids taking only easy courses. I'm not sure that isn't a problem that some mechanism wouldn't be able to counteract.

    As to it changing the attitude towards aspiring toward a profession - I don't know. That doesn't really ring true with me. A lot of people go to work every day with the intent both earn a paycheck and to get ahead in the long term and get into a more successful career.

    Shinto on
  • Shazkar ShadowstormShazkar Shadowstorm Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Ah, fuck, I forget who this guy was who came to our school in HS to give a talk, he was a professor at Harvard I think and tried something like this with regards to paying kids to do well on tests in some inner city schools, and it worked, and doing things like bringing Xboxes to school so kids who got there early could play, instead of having kids skipping school to go sell drugs or whatever, and apparently it worked well, fuck, what's his name... aughhh

    EDIT:
    Oh right, Fryer:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/nyregion/19schools.html?ref=education
    Schools Plan to Pay Cash for Marks

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    By JENNIFER MEDINA
    Published: June 19, 2007

    New York City students could earn as much as $500 a year for doing well on standardized tests and showing up for class in a new program to begin this fall, city officials announced yesterday. And the Harvard economist who created the program is joining the inner circle of Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, according to an official briefed on the hiring.

    The economist, Roland G. Fryer, who has published several studies on racial inequality in public schools, met this month with school principals around the city to push his program, which uses money raised privately.

    Both Mr. Klein and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg have been eager to hear Professor Fryer’s thoughts on how to reverse the persistent lagging of poor and minority students, who make up most of the city’s public school enrollment. But educators have been skeptical, saying students have to love learning for its own sake, not for cash prizes.

    Now Professor Fryer will be the Department of Education’s “chief equality officer,” a member of the chancellor’s senior staff. The title is meant to reflect his primary focus — to improve the performance of black and Hispanic students.

    The school incentive program is part of the mayor’s wider antipoverty initiative, which also includes other cash payments, all raised privately, to influence behavior and reduce poverty. Details of the various incentive programs were announced yesterday by Linda Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services, at a briefing at City Hall. The incentive programs are expected to attract more than 2,500 families in Harlem; Brownsville and East New York in Brooklyn; and the Morris Heights and East Tremont sections of the Bronx, she said.

    Cash incentives for adults will include $150 a month for keeping a full-time job and $50 a month for having health insurance. Families will also receive as much as $50 per month per child for high attendance rates in school, as well as $25 for attending parent-teacher conferences.

    The city has already raised much of the $53 million it needs for the program, Ms. Gibbs said. The effort, which officials said was the broadest ever tried in this country to pay poor people to develop good habits, is modeled in part on one in Mexico.

    Although Professor Fryer helped devise some of the broader incentives like the payments for high attendance rates, his main proposals involve payments to children for doing well on tests.

    Under his plan, fourth-grade students will receive up to $25 for a perfect score on each of 10 standardized tests throughout the year. Seventh-grade students will be able to earn twice as much — $50 per test, for a total of up to $500. Fourth graders will receive $5 just for taking the test, and seventh graders will get $10.

    Officials expect up to 40 schools to participate this fall, with a total of 9,000 students, in the pilot phase of the program, which will be monitored by Professor Fryer. After two years, they said, they will evaluate it for possible expansion.

    Principals in the system’s empowerment initiative — who have more autonomy to run their schools — can choose to join the program.

    Similar, smaller programs for cash incentives to raise schoolchildren’s performance have been put in place elsewhere in the country. In Chelsea, Mass., for instance, students can receive $25 for perfect attendance. And in Dallas, some schools hand over $2 for every book a child reads.

    Despite the criticism of the program from some teachers and principals, some community leaders praised Professor Fryer’s idea yesterday as an inventive way to encourage students to do well in school.

    “I’m willing to say let’s see what works,” said Darwin Davis, the president of the Urban League. “We are in a capitalist society and people are motivated by money across race and across class, so why not?”

    But Mr. Davis also cautioned that the amounts of money being offered were relatively paltry in New York.

    “I wish $50 could be enough for an insurance payment, but that’s not going to be the case,” he said, wondering aloud how many tests students would need to pass to buy the latest video game.

    Sol Stern, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, called the idea a “insult to every hard-working parent.”

    Mr. Stern has said he would support paying teachers more to work in low-performing schools.

    But he cautioned against giving too much credence to the notion that money would prod students. He said the mayor was being a “sucker for the market system.”

    Shazkar Shadowstorm on
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  • amateurhouramateurhour One day I'll be professionalhour The woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered User regular
    edited January 2008
    If anything, those incentives need to actually transfer to college. I love that idea, but it all crumbles when you get to college, and keep getting told "You're in college now, so work hard, and a great job is waiting for you, because that's just how it is in America..." So you work hard, then you graduate, and you've got nothing on the other side, and you feel like you've wasted four years as you take some entry level position doing stuff you were doing your Freshman year of school, for about 15K a year less than you're worth.

    I think the Masters programs at colleges need to have more scholarship opportunity. Like if you have a cum laude status then you can stay in school for your masters automatically.

    My only objection to the Shinto plan is that I agree that kids have no value of a dollar, and we need to be careful to not teach them this "money grows on trees" philosophy. There needs to be a way to let them enjoy the money, but not loose sight of why they're earning it. Other than that it sounds very good.

    Also, there should be a match system for the teachers depending on the number of kids that get into this program, factored evenly for the teachers that have to teach remedial classes. Their money can go into christmas bonuses or early retirement funds.

    amateurhour on
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  • PlutocracyPlutocracy regular
    edited January 2008
    As Scikar has mentioned there are schemes already in the UK which are intended to encourage teenagers to stay in some form of education after 16 since the number of school-leavers with inadequate qualifications has worried many representatives of industry bodies. Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is a means-tested financial support for those on A-level and vocational qualifications. There have also been reports of some schools giving away incentives like iPods to students who achieve to a certain level

    However, as you can imagine there is a fair bit of opposition to this, with the argument that government shouldn't be providing rewards for children to achieve at school or college because it sends out the wrong message.

    Plutocracy on
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  • lesleyannlesleyann Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Shinto wrote: »
    I don't know if they understand the value of money, but I think they would want it, which is sufficient to the purpose.

    Actually, the difference between their valuing of $30 per week and the extra work required to get that money would be what might cause problems.

    My instinct is that you would just widen divisions, with those kids who work hard or are smart enough to do well without effort happily being rewarded, and those kids who have to put in a lot of effort for little reward getting pissed off. Similar studies of such reward structures suggest that you just entrench differences: you would get a some kids at the top trying a little harder to get full rewards, and a some kids at the bottom deciding that the paltry $5 they get for trying quite a lot harder is unfair, and do even less than previously. I'm not at home so I can't find the book I remember these from, but I understand it was a pretty common phenomenon if anyone else knows of some figures.

    I don't know, however, what the effect would be across the board, whether it would raise performance. IE it might make the curve less equal, but nonetheless raise it as a whole.

    I agree completely. I'm in college, and I know what good 30 bucks can do for me in a pinch (dinner for weeks thanks to the ever so cheap asian market) however, I think the point of trying to improve the educational system in America is to close gaps like this in our society, where some people are way on top and others are at the bottom of the scale. What do you propose they do about the richer students that can afford extra help and thus get paid more in the end? I don't think its very fair to those students that try their hardest but don't have the resources to get tons of extra help, etc.

    Besides, give nerdier kids more of a reason for bullies to beat them up! Haha, everyone would know who to steal the lunch money from ;).

    lesleyann on
  • amateurhouramateurhour One day I'll be professionalhour The woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered User regular
    edited January 2008
    lesleyann wrote: »
    Shinto wrote: »
    I don't know if they understand the value of money, but I think they would want it, which is sufficient to the purpose.

    Actually, the difference between their valuing of $30 per week and the extra work required to get that money would be what might cause problems.

    My instinct is that you would just widen divisions, with those kids who work hard or are smart enough to do well without effort happily being rewarded, and those kids who have to put in a lot of effort for little reward getting pissed off. Similar studies of such reward structures suggest that you just entrench differences: you would get a some kids at the top trying a little harder to get full rewards, and a some kids at the bottom deciding that the paltry $5 they get for trying quite a lot harder is unfair, and do even less than previously. I'm not at home so I can't find the book I remember these from, but I understand it was a pretty common phenomenon if anyone else knows of some figures.

    I don't know, however, what the effect would be across the board, whether it would raise performance. IE it might make the curve less equal, but nonetheless raise it as a whole.

    I agree completely. I'm in college, and I know what good 30 bucks can do for me in a pinch (dinner for weeks thanks to the ever so cheap asian market) however, I think the point of trying to improve the educational system in America is to close gaps like this in our society, where some people are way on top and others are at the bottom of the scale. What do you propose they do about the richer students that can afford extra help and thus get paid more in the end? I don't think its very fair to those students that try their hardest but don't have the resources to get tons of extra help, etc.

    Besides, give nerdier kids more of a reason for bullies to beat them up! Haha, everyone would know who to steal the lunch money from ;).

    Yeah, but this way the kids can afford to hire adam baldwin as a bodyguard........

    amateurhour on
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  • Not SarastroNot Sarastro __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    Shinto wrote: »
    I wonder if there is any way to surmount that particular difficulty. Improvement bonuses or larger relative payoffs toward the bottom of the scale.

    It's not actually the top & bottom of the whole scale that is the issue, it's more top & bottom within each grade. Basic problem is that the renumeration ($30) and the grading (ie A grades = $50, B grades = $40 or such) are less divisible than the range of student abilities (ie thousands of students). This is a problem common to all such grading structures, that you naturally get people at the bottom and lower of the scale for each grade who are usually aware of their place (ie when you get 59% on a test and record a C, where 50-59 = C, 60-69 = B, you feel a bit peeved) and that the grading system doesn't actually reflect their effort or score.

    So you get whole range of people within the system whose psyche (and thus future effort etc) is influenced by their grading, not simply the very top and very bottom.

    At the same time, as I said it might well raise the curve as a whole, but at the cost of being an unequal incentive. That would still justify it in my opinion, because the realistic purpose of education policy isn't to produce educational equality (though that might be the stated goal), but to educate the whole as best as possible.
    lesleyann wrote: »
    I agree completely. I'm in college, and I know what good 30 bucks can do for me in a pinch (dinner for weeks thanks to the ever so cheap asian market) however, I think the point of trying to improve the educational system in America is to close gaps like this in our society, where some people are way on top and others are at the bottom of the scale. What do you propose they do about the richer students that can afford extra help and thus get paid more in the end? I don't think its very fair to those students that try their hardest but don't have the resources to get tons of extra help, etc.

    That wasn't actually my point, but it's a good one. Somehow I hadn't even considered the variable effect of $30 on a student according to how rich they / their family is or where they live (pricing), which really should be blindingly obvious!

    Not Sarastro on
  • Fuzzy Cumulonimbus CloudFuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    whitey9 wrote: »
    If I had to make a list of the top 20 things that could fix the education system, this would not be on it. It's not the worst idea in the world, but we have much larger fish to fry that could make a huge amount of difference in the quality of education (NCLB).

    Plus I'm pretty sure the teachers would riot when they realize that their students are collectively making more than they are*. Also, when you reward kids to do something, like.. giving them money to play video games, and then you take away that reward, they cut back on playing video games to a shocking degree. This is why electrician's houses are always not wired quite right.

    I'd like to see it happen, maybe even in a small setting, just to see the results. Low income children tend to do worse because the parents don't help them out at home, and if the child was bringing home a little paycheck, they may give them some more attention. Which sounds really fucked up and awful, but if it works, who cares.

    *You would think that the primary concern for most teachers is the advancement of their students. You couldn't be more wrong.
    Yeah, I'm sure teachers just work to get paid a large amount of money.
    Are you fucking kidding me?
    Teachers are one of the lowest paid state groups. It's amazing that they even do their job at all.

    Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud on
  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited January 2008
    lesleyann wrote: »
    What do you propose they do about the richer students that can afford extra help and thus get paid more in the end? I don't think its very fair to those students that try their hardest but don't have the resources to get tons of extra help, etc.

    I don't really care as long as more students try harder.

    It's not like I made this suggestion out of sympathy for the unpaid work of pustulent teenagers. So what if Ricky Rich ends up with an extra $15 a week more than Joe Average as long as Ricky and Joe are working harder than they would otherwise.

    Shinto on
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