"A Momentary Monetary Gift..."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/content/education/chi-money-for-grades-11-sep11,0,4916582,print.story

An article in the Chicago Tribune said that students in some Chicago Public Schools would receive $50 for A’s, $35 for B’s, and $20 for C’s from a Harvard study.

Most of the people who end up talking about this idea agree that it may be the wrong kind of incentive. Liz Pulliam Weston in her article “Is it smart to pay for good grades?” discusses how giving money for good grades will stop kids from getting good grades for the satisfaction, and only for the momentary monetary gift. She quotes Jon Gallo, saying “Some psychologists believe that paying for grades is a bad idea because it substitutes an external reward -- money -- for an internal sense of satisfaction and therefore interferes with developing a work ethic.” This makes a very strong point for parents and teachers because the thing we want from our students (or our children) is for them to have a good work ethic.

Not working for ethics will in turn cause them to lose a sense of responsibility for the community and their families. According to Janet Bodnar, this happens because after receiving grades for money, they will assume that everything in life will earn money, but that is just not the case.

Another blog that I looked at had the reader think about it a different way. How would this be if a teacher got paid more if his/her students performed better? As a future teacher, I think that would be a great idea, but however, the same conondrum will apply. Will the teachers be teaching the subjects they want to teach, or will they only teach the test so they can get paid more? Is that what we want from our teachers? In my opinion, as much as I love money, we all know the answer is “no!”

As a future teacher, I do agree with some form of reward for good grades. However, does the reward have to be monetary? I don’t claim to know what the reward should be, but I do think that money is the wrong choice. The sense of a job well done should be enough. Unfortunately that isn’t the case. What does that say about our culture then? The culture argument, however, we will save for another day.

Cited:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/RaiseKids/IsItSmartToPayForGoodGrades.aspx

http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/2008/03/pay-kids-for-grades.html

http://judyarztblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/pay-for-grades.html

Other sources:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/blogentries/index.html?bbPostId=BzZD7fN81BUuCz5vaAKVeiW86Cz6kCqd1ZrR8UBACJApjc65v4&bbParentWidgetId=B8k88rWwXopuz5STgLeVwBLu