Honestly, I think most of you are missing the point. Looking back, I probably didn't need those incentives. My dad was an engineer. Graduate degree, at one point taught at the university level, etc. There were lots of books in my house. I was reading novels and doing math well ahead of my peer group, and enjoyed these things. Grew up in a nice, suburban town with a good school system. These kids aren't the same as me. They are poor, and mostly from the hood. If you told them that they were going to college or might some day end up working at an investment bank (for example), they would laugh in your face. Most of them don't know anybody who graduated from college. Most of you are coming at this issue from the perspective of a community or environment where educational is automatically a priority. This is not the world in which these kids are living. Also, this moralizing is missing the point. It is a matter of social policy. We are fucking ourselves if we don't try to incentivize these kids. Tomorrow's Einstein might be born in the Bronx. But if he ends up with shitty parents and a shitty school....tomorrow Einstein might end up selling drugs. It's about not squandering social capital. Most of the complaints that are registered about these programs are total First World Problems. Sermonizing is great when you are in a position where you can afford to sermonize. There was a program a few years ago that was really cool where, instead of money, they had celebrities like LeBron James and Jay Z call these kids and congratulate them. Now that is some fucking motivation if you're twelve. A phone call from Jay-Z would be the highlight of most kids years.
After years of yelling at me proved ineffective (especially as I was yelled at for things like "not tucking in my shirt in gym class") I was told I'd get a new CD if I turned a C+ into an A. I did and he bought me... t.A.t.u Beyond that it was generally a "You're never good enough" anyway. Not sure how effective that was as the courses I was taking by that point I was legitimately interested in and good at.
I think it's you who is missing the point. This has nothing to do with education, it has everything to do with "because I said so". NOBODY that I went to school with was ever paid for grades. Ever. You did it because it was expected of you, with nothing in return, because there is shit in life that is just expected of you. By monetizing the grades, you then set up a contract of sorts that says "here's what you get if you do this, and if you don't do this, you don't get that". The implication is that it's now an option for the kid to NOT do well. But fuck that. It was NEVER an option to not do my best to get grades. And that raises a good point... what if the kid just isn't good at school? What if (s)he puts in a shit-ton of effort, but just can't do well? If anything, the kid should be rewarded for the effort, not the results. On top of that, it's teaching them fuck all about return on investment. You have to put in months of hard work to get $100? Screw that. If they're trying to make it like the real world, then assign a proper value to the results. Maybe it's just a shift towards treating kids like adults, and negotiating and rationalizing with them. To me, that's not a good thing. Kids are kids, not adults, and there are some things that should be instilled in them from an early age, and buying grades doesn't do it. The biggest rewards I got from good grades were the genuine pride I saw in my parents, awesome self esteem, a great sense of accomplishment, and feeling good. That was enough to perpetuate that behaviour. What has changed that this is no longer the case? Personally, I think it's got more to do with families than anything. The family unit is not the same as it was 30 years ago, and I think it's declining. I'd love to see the correlation between families that have dinner together and kids being paid for grades.
This isn't about you. New York City isn't paying you. They're not paying the kids that you went to school with, either. This is about kids in Bed Stuy. This is about kids in the Bronx. It's about kids who have no fathers at home. Kids whose mothers read at a tenth grade level and can barely make rent. Who don't know anyone who went to college. Hell, half the people they know are unemployed. Who look around and see that the only people with money in their neighborhood are the drug dealers. Your world is not their world. Their world is a hellhole without good role models, with shitty schools, and parents that often don't care or don't know how to teach their kid these things. And you're right. Their family structure probably sucks. They are kids. They don't ask for or do anything to deserve this. Shitty luck has thrown them into this world. It seems to me that setting up a system that rewards good grades is the least we could do. My guess is that the NYC schools commissioner isn't all that concerned with the pearl-clutching of people in the Upper East Side or Greenwich, CT as long as it keeps these kids in school long enough to graduate. And maybe send a few of them off to college. It's about showing them that some times, education DOES pay. Because the environment they grow up in isn't telling them that. What's your alternative here? Because if you have a better alternative, I'm sure the New York City commissioner of schools would love to hear it.
Yep. This kind of thing makes my skin crawl. As a teacher, I am constantly bombarded with the "what's in it for me" type of attitude that is just getting stronger and stronger. I think it has to do a lot with our society becoming increasingly motivated by instant gratification. Kids today are irate when a cell phone takes longer than 30 seconds to upload/download/refresh/send when in our generation, we actually had to wait for someone to get the fuck off the phone in order to use it. Grades are very much the same. "It makes you smarter" or "you'll use this knowledge later in life" or "you're going to be successful someday" means nothing to them because it's not a tangible reward that happens RIGHTTHISVERYSECOND! They can't think with longevity. I think it's wrong for parents to buy into this type of mentality. It's just one more instance of how manners, problem solving skills, and long term planning have all started to go by the wayside. Ugh. Thanks for doing this on a Friday. I'm going to be a real bitch at happy hour.
Again, you're proving my point. It's about shit families and shit ROI. If a kid has a choice between making a grand a week dealing, or making $100 for 6 months hard work, what will they choose? One of the best students I've ever known came from a dirt-poor family from Brazil, and he was top of the class because his mother (who had no high school education herself) beat the everloving fuck out of him if he didn't do well. He didn't get paid, there were no negotiations, it was a simple "do this or I will fuck your shit up". He did it, because she cared enough to make sure he did it. Buying grades is a cop-out that teaches the wrong values to kids.
True. But what about teaching them the value of pleasure delay or pride of self? That there are things that you, as a human, are simply supposed to do...you know, like be the best person you can be? Why does everything have to come with incentive and tangible reward?
Good for him. I'm not being snarky, seriously, good for him. But he's an exceptional case. Anecdotes of individuals beating a system stacked against them are great, until we forget that they're atypical cases. For every dirt-poor immigrant with limited language skills who graduates at the top of his class, there's five who drop out. And five who graduate, but just barely. What do you propose that we do for them? Let them drift? I haven't seen the people in this thread that are critical of the program actually suggest any alternatives. Like I said, if you have them, I'm sure the New York City government would love to hear them. You say this as if these are mutually exclusive alternatives. My suggestion is that we do everything we can, and see what works. The facts on the ground are that not enough of these kids are graduating. Not enough are performing adequately on tests. Leaving school without the skills they need to survive, and to be contributing members of our economy. We need to actually do something about this. And if something provides results, I'm less concerned with what the type of people quoted in the article (lawyers, therapists, etc.) have to say. When actual school teachers and administrators in the Bronx are telling me that it isn't working, then it's a different matter. If this measure means that more of these kids can read, more kids graduate, more kids go to college, more are employable in the future....then go for it.
This is an interesting read: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009 ... act_lehrer</a> It's basically known as "The Marshmallow Experiment". And they followed up on those kids in that experiment: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/06/the-crime-of-lead-exposure/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/ ... -exposure/</a> Again, it's an interesting read. Unless you want to stick with the "but-I-be-from-the-hood-so-have-to-suck-at-life" cop-out philosophy, that is.
I don't give a fuck about what happens to them, really. But if we want shit to change, we have to get away from the bullshit family unit that is becoming the norm. Too many parents aren't being parents, they are checking out and not giving a shit. Morals and values are being taught to kids by TV, and the result is that we are getting more and more overly self-entitled fuckheads. I 100% directly attribute the type of person I am to my parents. I'm not talking about the whole over-the-top cynical old man persona you all seem to have of me, but I mean the stuff that matters. I work hard, I help others, I'm not a dick to people (unless I get to know them and they deserve it), I'm respectful, etc. I don't have some entitlement complex that says everybody owes me everything. I understand that working hard, and working smart, will get me the rewards that I'm looking for. Simple family values. And I also find it interesting that while a lot of farmers and fishermen that I know are some of the poorest around, they are some of the best fucking people I know. I wonder why that is? Wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that they grew up working hard, would it?
What difference does it make how the kid gets good grades? If a child doesnt respond to incentives, that's one thing. But if they do, and they don't cheat, then what difference does it really make? Colleges and employers don't care if your parents paid you for good grades or if you did it by yourself; the only thing that matters is that you had the ability to do it. Incentive-based results is how the real world works, so it's not that big of a deal. My parents spent hours hounding me to do well in school, but you know what finally worked? Letting me have something to show for it if I did. Maybe the process isn't as organic, but in the end, does that sense of accomplishment actually get you anything? I had a normal nuclear family growing up. It was a stable, loving household with no issues. Some kids just don't give a shit or see the value in school as they should. And if a little money can change that? Why not?
That's part of the issue here. We have very different perspectives. Largely because you don't live there. It is mostly an academic issue for you. The same would be true if you asked me about Vancouver's schools. You can afford not to care. Fixing broken schools is not merely a moral issue for the American public. It is also an economic and pragmatic one. In ten years, these people will be my economy. Both as an American, and because I'm moving to New York City. My welfare is partially dependent on whether or not we can fix these schools. These people will be asked to invent things. To manufacture things. To manage things. It is in my interest to advocate for a system that actually prepare them to do so. My bank account in part depends on it. You say that you attribute who you are to your parents. I'm happy for you that you won the Parent Lottery. In most respects I did too. But these kids didn't, and what I'm suggesting is that it's not in our best interest to merely throw up our hands and say "Fuck, that sucks." Also, Nett, you come from a country that, by an large, has schools that work. Canada, as a country, has better testing results than ANY U.S. state. Your system isn't broken, and hence didn't need to be fixed. Ours is. And does. Yes, I'd love to fix education by fixing family structures. I cosign everything you just said. And poverty for that matter, since it would be a plus if they had a roof over their heads and 3 meals a day. But I don't see why we should expect educational administrators to sit on their hands and do nothing until this happens. Working on these issues and working on educational issues are not mutually exclusive goals. They can be done in parallel.
Dude, we're just as fucked as you are, it's just not as widely known or reported on. And I happen to live 10 miles from the murder capital of Canada. We have the same issues that you do, and again, I believe that the root of it is the disintegration of the family unit. And I find it interesting, maybe even ironic, that some of the theories as to why the school systems in some States are as fucked as they are is because the schools themselves are getting paid for the grades of their students, and therefore are becoming corrupt to keep the cash coming in.
Well, not from a results perspective. At least according to testing scores (which have their limits as metrics). Canada, as a nation, tests relatively well. Twelfth in the world in math. It's a known fact that the US does not. Lesser know, however, is that even the best of our states pulls in slightly ahead of Slovenia. The worst states are equivalent of Thailand or Serbia. Based on math scores, they might as well be attending school in the third world. Even if they have similar underlying issues, Canada at least appears to be doing a better job of dealing with their shit.
Oh great idea! Let's take hard-earned taxpayer money in a region with already exorbitant state and city taxes to compensate for incompetent parents and/or to incentivize their unmotivated kids! As a taxpayer, I get such a good return on investment if Laqueesha breaks 850 on her SATs! In addition, I don't think this works. Kids don't really intuitively grasp the concept of money in the way that adults do and will not respond to monetary incentives accordingly. I underperformed until maybe junior year of high school; I wasn't paid for grades but I don't think it would had helped. Children and teenagers just have low future time orientation (as do a lot of adults).
35% of our states are severely deficient in math teaching. 38% are rated as poor 26% are rated acceptable 18% are rated good.
And you say this like it is? You may be trying to make a joke, but really, it's sad. Don't you take pride in your work? I know I do. For instance, I welded up some stuff today for my Jeep, some pieces parts that nobody will ever see. There were some parts of the weld that looked like ass when I was done, and it pissed me off. Sure, it would have worked the way it was, but I took the extra five minutes to grind it off and redo it so that it looked better. One day you will learn that a lot of life's most rewarding actions don't come with a paycheck.
Dude, you even used the word "rewarding" in reference to the alleged activities for which you are not rewarded.