Morning Open Thread: Bribing Kids For Good Grades?

[SeminalBlog]

Back during our issue on education, I wrote about a promising new program in New York City designed to pay parents and students who make an effort and invest in a child's education:

The program's wider aim is to eliminate poverty, but it uses a novel approach to do so. The city will pay small amounts of money to residents for certain behaviors, incentivizing things the government wants to promote. To fight poverty, adults will receive $150 a month for holding a full time job and $50 a month for having health care. New York is using the program to incentivize good educational behavior outside of school as well. They will pay parents to make sure their kids have better high school attendance and to attending parent-teacher conferences.

Recently, the program has been expanded to pay students for certain grades, as part of a more national effort that can involve giving kids things like pizza parties or gift certificates if certain achievement levels are reached.
I think this is a good idea, and well worth trying. While critics would say paying students for grades doesn't instill in them the love of learning for learning's sake, I argue that you must look at the reality of the situation these children are in as well. Virginia Connelly, the principal of Junior High School 123, in the Soundview section of the Bronx, agrees:

“We’re in competition with the streets,” Ms. Connelly said. “They can go out there and make $50 illegally any day of the week. We have to do something to compete with that.”

If inventivizing good grades keeps kids off the streets and learning, that's a good thing. And it's not like these kids aren't gaining knowledge. To get a reward, children have to earn the grades, which presumably means they learned something in the process.
As I said, I'm all for this experiment. What do you think?
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