In an increasing effort to get young children engaged in the education process, a Harvard economist has conducted an experiment researching the effects of paying students for good grades. While results were different in different cities, the conclusion that he came to is fairly obvious &- students are more motivated to do something they don’t want to do when they are being rewarded for it.
While the conclusion is obvious, the course parents, educators and legislators should take in educating kids is less so. Clearly the goal of public education is to help kids learn the basic skills that they will need to succeed in the future: traditional reading, writing and arithmetic. However, this level of achievement shouldn’t be attained at any cost &- monetary or otherwise.
The fiscal cost, while secondary to the moral one, is necessary to address. Even if paying students is deemed appropriate, the question arises as to who should foot the bill &- parents, underfunded school systems or the recession-ridden federal government?
The idea behind public education is to create a level playing field for students of all backgrounds and income levels. Not all parents can afford to pay their children, just as not all school systems have the discretionary funds to spend on student incentives. Paying students for grades would benefit those schools that can afford it &- that is, the students who most likely already have a leg up.
However, the biggest problem isn’t how such a system would be funded, but rather the effect that bribing students at a young age will have on them later on. Paying students for As is a system that can’t be sustained forever. Eventually, the money will be taken away and we will be left with a generation of students who have no sense of self-motivation or pride in their work.
Ultimately, it’s a toss-up between sacrificing success and sacrificing integrity. Sure, students may get better grades if they are offered monetary compensation, but parents and educators have to ask themselves what it is that these kids are actually learning. Is it worth it to learn long division by being taught to always feel entitled to a personal reward? Ultimately the most important lessons taught in schools aren’t the ones that kids can be bribed into learning, but the ones that come from old-fashioned, self-motivated hard work.
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