Should Education Pay?
On today’s docket we have an article from the Omaha World-Herald about a speech tonight at UNO’s 100th anniversary gala by Roland Fryer, a Harvard economist who says we should look at paying students for good grades. The idealist says this is a sad workaround for something that kids should be valued intrinsically, as well as any future monetary benefits. The realist says that all that matters is what works in getting kids to study more and earn better grades. And explanations about all the additional income one can earn over the course of their lifetime with more education are not as visceral as receiving $20 now for an A. I have serious doubts about the ethical implications of such pay-to-study programs, but I would rather the final decision be based on available empirical evidence.
I agree – we should let the data reveal the effectiveness of pay for performance programs. However, we can also look at past research that shows such programs do lead to positive impact. Here are a few:
Margaret Raymond study, “Paying for A’s: An Early Exploration of Student Reward and Incentive Programs in Charter Schools,” Center for Research on Education Outcomes of Stanford University releases April 2008:
The results highlight that reward programs produced consistent and positive results across grades on state achievement tests in reading, adding 4 percentile points to the average student’s performance each year the student participated in the rewards program.
Kenya study, “Incentives to Learn” by Michael Kremer (Harvard University, Brookings Institution, and National Bureau of Economic Research), Edward Miguel (University of California, Berkeley, and NBER), and Rebecca Thornton (University of Michigan) published in January 2008 – “We find evidence for positive program impacts on academic performance: girls who were eligible for scholarships in program schools had significantly higher test scores than comparison school girls.”
Perhaps folks would accept such incentive programs if the reward was something other than cash…?
23 Feb 2009 at 12:31 am
Hi. Thanks for the comment. While I do think that rewarding students with cash is a primary issue for many, nothing else comes to mind that could serve in lieu of cash that wouldn’t also be valued by the students for its monetary value (i.e. ipods, clothing, concert tickets, etc.) I think the issue for some is they feel that education is debased by introducing money for success that, ideally, the students should want anyway.
I’ve done an activity several times with jr high and high school aged students where we look at the average yearly salaries of a high school dropout, a high school graduate, and a college graduate. We make a list of all the monthly bills they will have when they’re working adults (rent/mortgage, utilities, food, etc.) plus reasonable amounts for expendable purchases such as entertainment, electronics, clothes. By the end, the students see that with each additional level of education they will have more money to spend on the things they want. The issue is that in my experience with this activity is that even though the kids “get it”, it doesn’t translate into changes in everyday behavior. Which is why, despite my reservations, I’m willing to entertain the idea of an immediate reward as a last resort means of behavior change, even if there is no “values changes” along with it.
23 Feb 2009 at 4:23 pm