Should Kids Be Bribed To Do Well In School? 706
theodp writes "Harvard economist Roland Fryer Jr. did something education researchers almost never do: he ran a randomized experiment in hundreds of classrooms in Chicago, Dallas, Washington, and New York to help answer a controversial question: Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School? He used mostly private money to pay 18,000 kids a total of $6.3 million and brought in a team of researchers to help him analyze the effects. He got death threats, but he carried on. His findings? If incentives are designed wisely, it appears, payments can indeed boost kids' performance as much as or more than many other reforms you've heard about before — and for a fraction of the cost."
Re:It does work, but you have to keep paying them. (Score:4, Informative)
The experiments so far indicate that paying students for results improves only the results paid for. Pay for attendance, you get attendance. Pay for grades on quizzes, you get grades on quizzes. End of year scores don't improve much, if at all. And when the money stops, so does the improvement.
You might want to read the article. It states quite clearly that paying kids for books read increased standardized test scores on reading and that these were long term gains
Re:Publishing Research in Newspapers? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
Do adults do their jobs because "they are supposed to" or "out of the kindness of their own hearts."
I do my job because I love it.
I've been offered more money (sometimes *much* more) to do something else. Each time, I turned it down.
What is a bribe? (Score:5, Informative)
The word, “bribe,” has two very different common meanings.
The first is a payment to somebody to do something illicit. It might or might not be something the person objects to doing, but it is something against the rules. A border agent might or might not think smoking pot is a good idea, but if you pay him to look the other way while you drive your “plant tissue samples” across the border, that’s a bribe.
The second, and the usage implied here, is a payment to somebody to do something they don’t want to do but which isn’t illicit. It’s especially applied to things that most people think the person should want to do without compensation but, for whatever reason, the person isn’t interested. If you offer to pay your spouse to fold the laundry, that’s often considered a bribe.
But, clearly, almost all paid work falls into the second category. While the work I do isn’t objectionable and pays well, there’s simply no way I’d do it unless you paid me (and paid me well). There are other things I’d rather do for money, but they don’t pay as well. And there are still other things I do and would do that either don’t pay or that I have to pay to do.
So, unless you think your boss is bribing you to go to work, or unless you’d happily give up your paycheck but still continue at your job, it is most hypocritical to call what’s described in this article a bribe. You might wish that students would put in maximum effort even if they don’t get a cash reward, but your boss wishes the exact same thing of you.
Whether or not paying students is an effective end economical method of turning them into honorable and effective citizens is a valid topic of discussion, but such payments are most emphatically not bribes.
Cheers,
b&
Re:a better question (Score:5, Informative)
'as a taxpayer, i don't think it's fair that i'm already paying for your child's education,...'
You're not; you are paying back the cost of your education. That is being invested in the education of the current students, who will, in turn, pay it back.
Re:a better question (Score:1, Informative)
I'm not aware of any current programs like this one. This story is about a research experiment, not a current policy.
Re:Why Not? (Score:3, Informative)
I've never met a kid who said he'd rather never have been born altogether.
- nice to meet you then.
Re:a better question (Score:3, Informative)
Your whole family still benefits greatly from living in a society which strives to educate its members (which is also easier to efficiently do en masse as far as specialised knowledge/equipment/etc. are involved; gives benefit of socialisation; doesn't mean typically one parent being out of workforce)
Re:a better question (Score:5, Informative)
You don't like how your taxes are spent?
Welcome to society, where everyone doesn't like a program or two that their tax money funds.
Re:a better question (Score:5, Informative)
What? Providing for my kids and sending them to school is the same as slavery? Just in case you did not notice, most slaves were not sent to school during the day, but to work. School benefits the child, not the parent.
Slavery is a horrible institution that is rightfully banned. It irks me when people compare working for wages or going to school to slavery.
Re:a better question (Score:1, Informative)
From TFA: Fryer appeared on The Colbert Report and CNN to talk about the experiment, and that's about when the death threats started.
Viewers of The Colbert Report and CNN apparently.
Re:a better question (Score:3, Informative)
Teachers Unions
Re:No (Score:1, Informative)
I do my job because I love it.
If they didn't pay you at all, would you still do it?
And if so, how would you eat?