Cash for Grades

[Globex]

I've heard about programs that give students cash rewards for getting good grades. What do you think about them? Are they a good idea? Are they a bad idea? Do they destroy students' love of learning? Will these programs be exploited? Do they have great potential for success? Will they have a positive impact on low-income communities?

I've found many articles that discuss this topic but I haven't really found a lot of detailed statistics about the successes/failures of these programs (though there are some stats in the Time article below). I expect that, given that these programs are relatively recent, there isn't abundant data about the long term success (i.e. whether these programs actually raise the probability of the student succeeding in the real world) but if you can find some interesting stats, please post them.

Some old articles that I found on Google. Take a look through them if you like:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-01-27-grades_N.htm

http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/2008/01/03/the-value-of-good-grades.html

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1871528,00.html

Discuss

 

[Mowque]

studied this in my ed classes (and my school did a version of it) Its not a bad idea, but i don't think it is going to change the world one way or other. I think the money would be better to buy new books, computers, better ligthing and so on IMO

 

[Rashiminos]

It might result in more focus on education, but perhaps not for the desired reasons.

 

[Fifty]

Roland Fryer gave a guest lecture at my uni last year that I went to where he talked about this (he was one of the people who put it in place). His philosophy is that we need to get much more quantitative about education reform. He'll try anything, including paying students. The point is that we need detailed, scientifically rigorous studies of what works and what doesn't, and he thinks that that is the main problem with education reform in america, is its a collection of ideas with no empirical testing. You can probably find more info by poking around his lab page.

One interesting thing he said is that he thinks that if someone spent 2 years working with education statistics they would do more good than doing 2 years with a program like TFA.

*sits and hope downtown comments on the above*

edit: here is a major empirical paper on financial incentives in education by Fryer (warning .pdf file)

 

[Bigfoot3814]

*sits and hope downtown comments on the above*

You post standing up?

 

[illram]

Well you get good grades to get into a good school so you can get a good job to get paid good money so.... this is just speeding up the whole process.

What, is school there to make people wise and learned? Ha, what a joke.

 

[CCRunner]

Bad idea.

Should only the students that improve be rewarded? That would seem like punishment to those students who don't need to improve and promote a ton of sandbagging. I would definitely do purposefully bad in order to get some hard cash when I know that I'll be able to bring my grade up later. And I'm not the only one. Sandbagging is exactly what they don't want.

Should only bad students be rewarded? Then what is the point of being a good student? Obviously people want to get into a good university and stuff but the reality is, even in high school many good students just don't care about their future compared to now. They would all take an extra hundred dollars in a heartbeat if all they had to do was work less. Also promotes the idea of entitlement. I do not believe that just because I am smarter than another, they should be paid to make up the difference.

Should only the good students be rewarded? Sure that would motivate some students to try harder but in my experience, those who get bad grades don't just have a problem with working hard. It would be incredibly hard for them to work their way up to getting semi-decent grades and in the likely occurrence that they don't accomplish this, then they rationalize that maybe they're just stupid. I know it may sound like I argued they were indeed stupid but that's not what I meant at all. Book smarts don't and shouldn't be the only measure of intelligence (another thing that this would promote). I've scored in the 99th percentile on every gifted test I've ever taken but I know several "bad" students who are 1000 times... what's the word... more common sense-y than me.

Spoiler Common Sense Test :

How do you put a giraffe in the fidge?

Spoiler :

Open the door, put him in, close the door.
How do you put an elephant in the fridge?

Spoiler :

Open the door, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant, close the door
The king of all the animals holds a meeting that every animal must attend. Who doesn't?

Spoiler :

The elephant, he's in the fridge
How do you cross a river full of alligators without using a boat?

Spoiler :

Swim, the alligators are at the meeting

Should all the students be rewarded? That would waste a ton of money better spent on improving their education or actually making education interesting. If a subject is interesting then even the worst students will want to learn about it. Hiring a good teacher is a much better investment of (around 30 kids per class * $110 the article mentioned * around 7 classes a day = $23,100) $23,000, as is better equipment, better books, and a better training for the teachers.

In addition to problems like who exactly should the money go to, where would the money come from? Out of the pockets of the parents, that's where. It's not beneficial if somebody takes $120 and gives you $110 back.

Plus, as others have said, it wouldn't actually promote an interest in learning. Interest is in no way related to being paid to fake an interest.

You post standing up?

Post Stealer

 

[Fifty]

see CCRunner's post is a perfect example of what Fryer talks about being the exact wrong thing to do. When debating education policy, people just sortof debate what seems right based on their own anecdotal experience and their lazy reasoning. There is no felt need to engage with actual data or to do experiments or any of the other things we do when we try to answer other scientific questions.

 

[CCRunner]

So we need to waste money and risk harming children's education to tell us what any high school student could tell you? I would love to be wrong about this, free money sounds great to me too. I just do not believe I am.

I didn't read the .pdf you posted, will do so now. I'll post/edit in my thoughts after I finish

Thoughts
1. The study was conducted on college students; students who have proven themselves adept test takers and intelligent already. These "good" students are precisely the type of people that don't need the money to show interest in education
2. Dealt mainly with gender differences. Not a big deal, just a small observation
3. Stress increased more than 10% in women when money was offered for performance. Stressed out students may do fine on this test or the next one, or the one after that but eventually they'll crash and burn.
4. major point, it only studied the effects on one single test. A single test is different than an entire two semesters.

I'll admit, financial aid does seem to increase scores. I just question if it's the best way.

 

[Fifty]

the point is that whether or not your conclusion is right, your method is wrong. Sitting around making tenuous logical connections that make no effort to actually look at any data is the wrong way to think about education reform.

 

[Perfection]

So fiddy, one probs with that approach is how we measure educational success? How does Mr. Fryer, dude, propose we do dat?

 

[Fifty]

So fiddy, one probs with that approach is how we measure educational success? How does Mr. Fryer, dude, propose we do dat?

hell if i know! i think one method they use is not to measure achievement in absolute terms (i.e. pure test scores) but in relative terms (i.e. how do poor black kids test scores compare to rich white boy scores).

Measuring success is definitely a real methodological issue, but its one that we have to pursue rather than jus going "um this kinda sorta makes sense!" or "um this kinda doesn't make sense!" without actually engaging any data whatsoever. Anecdotal hunches shmanecdotal funches!

 

[lutzj]

(i.e. how do poor black kids test scores compare to rich white boy scores).

Don't forget middle-class Asian girl scores

 

[Perfection]

hell if i know! i think one method they use is not to measure achievement in absolute terms (i.e. pure test scores) but in relative terms (i.e. how do poor black kids test scores compare to rich white boy scores).

Measuring success is definitely a real methodological issue, but its one that we have to pursue rather than jus going "um this kinda sorta makes sense!" or "um this kinda doesn't make sense!" without actually engaging any data whatsoever. Anecdotal hunches shmanecdotal funches!

I should note that I wasain't disagrein' jus curious if you knew more about the methodology of Mr. Fryer, dude.

 

[potatokiosk]

I don't like the idea of paying kids for grades because it sends the message that the only point in an education is to make money.

Measuring success is definitely a real methodological issue, but its one that we have to pursue rather than jus going "um this kinda sorta makes sense!" or "um this kinda doesn't make sense!" without actually engaging any data whatsoever. Anecdotal hunches shmanecdotal funches!

A teacher with years of experience who has dealt with hundreds of students will know what works and what doesn't. Why not have teachers try out ideas, get the teacher's opinions on those ideas, and then use their opinions as evidence? I don't see why education needs to be quantitatively measured.

 

[Perfection]

Yeah, well it's also not for the "joy of learning" or any other of that claptrap.

School sucks. If school didn't suck, we wouldn't need it!

 

[Onionsoilder]

If somebody wants to give me money for getting good grades, they're welcome to. As far as it actually helping the educational system, I don't really see how it benefits it in any way except motivating lazy, smart kids to actually do the work.

 

[Integral]

A teacher with years of experience who has dealt with hundreds of students will know what works and what doesn't. Why not have teachers try out ideas, get the teacher's opinions on those ideas, and then use their opinions as evidence? I don't see why education needs to be quantitatively measured.

Because impact evaluation and randomized trials are the in thing right now, so that's what gets funding, so that's how we do things.

--

I'm not sure how I feel about cash-for-grades programs. There is certainly a possibility of crowding-out the private incentives to learn and replacing them with pure financial motivation. How widespread that effect is would be difficult to quantify.

There have recently been several forays into cash-for-attendance programs at the primary and secondary level (Mexico's Progresa program and Nicaragua's RPS program come to mind) that have had generally good results: delinquency rates drop when you tie financial incentives to school attendance. However, these incentives were part of broader antipoverty reforms and I'm not sure if the results would carry over into cash-for-grades programs.

I do agree with Fifty that the move to empirical analysis is a good thing, and randomized trials are becoming a key part of that. The Fryer/Levitt/List paper is a step in the right direction.

 

[Alpine Trooper]

Here's an idea, pay for their education don't pay them.

 

[Alpine Trooper]

Will they have a positive impact on low-income communities?

If only because the kids may be able to eat a full breakfast before going to school.