Should Students Receive Financial Rewards for Good Behavior?
Mar 9th, 2009 • Posted in: NewsNew York Times looks at ethical and practical dilemmas of increasingly popular pay-for-performance programs
NEW YORK
Educators are locked in debate over whether it is ethical — or even effective — to offer students rewards for good performance, the New York Times reports.
The Times’s Lisa Guernsey writes: “For decades, psychologists have warned against giving children prizes or money for their performance in school. ‘Extrinsic’ rewards, they say — a stuffed animal for a 4-year-old who learns her alphabet, cash for a good report card in middle or high school — can undermine the joy of learning for its own sake and can even lead to cheating…. But many economists and businesspeople disagree, and their views often prevail in the educational marketplace. Reward programs that pay students are under way in many cities. In some places, students can bring home hundreds of dollars for, say, taking an Advanced Placement course and scoring well on the exam.”
Guernsey notes that reward programs are proliferating and seeing particularly heavy growth in areas such as impoverished sections of Dallas and New York, as well as in Washington, where a private coalition is distributing checks to students for good grades and good behavior.
One critic argues that pay-for-performance programs unfairly demoralize learning-disabled students, who go home with smaller payouts and may feel less enthusiastic about learning.
Other criticisms, according to the Times piece, center on the contention that students from poor families desperately in need of money will be subject to intolerable pressure.
But others cited in the piece, including some economists, argue that with failing students, any strategy should be tested, and that rewards could eventually translate into a love of learning.
Source: New York Times, Mar. 4.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Feb. 23 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 16 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 5 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 5 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 15, 2008.
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