All About the Benjamins

I was at first appalled when I heard about Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer’s proposal to provide a cash reward for students who perform well on tests.

The plan seems a brutal affirmation of the financial incentives that seem to control this country. Is the only way to succeed in motivating our children by hanging dollar bills in front of their face? What kind of values would that teach? Like Danny said, shouldn’t we be able to instill in children the desire to learn, rather than initiating some mad goose chase for a wad of cash?

But let’s be honest with ourselves: What do we want for our economically disadvantaged students? Why do we push them to succeed? What images do we use to motivate them? The answer is, more often than not, we hope that their performance in school will allow them to obtain a scholarship to college, to continue their education, allowing them choice in the job market and in their future, choice that is provided by, you got it, money. Many adolescents (and more in poor areas where there isn’t much exposure to college, different career paths, or success in an academic sense) have a hard time visualizing abstract concepts such as their life ten years down the road, and molding their actions in the present accordingly. They do, however, have a compelling desire for the twenty dollar bill sitting on the table. Is there really a fundamental difference between pushing our students to succeed financially in the future and rewarding them with cash right now?

And it seems to work. A similar cash incentive program for teachers whose classrooms perform well on tests in Tennessee has proven a success and experiments done in the United Kingdom and Kenya have shown that cash incentive raises student achievement across the board, not just in students in the top percentile.

Of course, I am not arguing that cash incentives are a panacea by any stretch of the imagination, and if anything would act as a band-aid while larger problems with the education system are addressed. I will argue, however, that in a system where money and success are (albeit unfortunately) so synonymous, the proposal is more appropriate than it may appear at first glance.