Money: The Ultimate Student Motivator?
Anthony
On Monday January 28, 2008 USA Today reported on a controversial program in schools that gives cash incentives to students for improving there test scores. WHAT? Baltimore schools offered as much as $110 for improving test scores. Hello … Some of the folks commenting on this were saying that the program is getting the results they were hoping for. Well, if the ends are more important than the means, why don’t we just get rid of the teachers and offer to split that salary for the year among the students in the class if they can pass without the hassle of paying for a teacher. Offer that to parents and we may get more homeschoolers. If money is such an incentive, why not try the inverse? Pay the administrators less, if their schools don’t improve. School should be about helping kids to learn and about teaching them how and why to learn. And where exactly is all this money coming from for them to hand out? I’m betting it’s my money - my tax money - yours and mine. I thought schools didn’t have enough money to buy books and pencils? What kind of nonsense is this? Young people should be taught the value of money and how to use it. They should not be paid for performance. You know, they could probably get better test scores if they offered free cocaine or marijuana as an incentive. Or condoms. Why not? I’m not sure where I missed the boat. You see, I thought children were supposed to learn how to learn while in school, not just how to pass tests. What are they going to do in life if all they know how to do is the bare minimum to get by? This isn’t the way to build the leaders of tomorrow. Young people need to learn to self-motivate. They need to be taught to recognize what they need to do in order to accomplish the objective. Cash motivation only breeds greedy, self-serving individuals who will never be satisfied in life. Personal fulfillment and indeed self esteem comes from having the confidence that you can figure something out. If you can’t pass a test but know how to find out the information and, more importantly, what to do with that information, you will go far in life.
Posted on: Thursday, January 31, 2008 at 2:25 am 
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