Organizations both right- and left-leaning have criticized this initiative, but we at Applebatch would prefer to take part in a conversation on the merits or demerits of incentive-based learning. Though we can all idealistically agree with the critique of Philippe Vrand, president of the French parent’s group P.E.E.P., that “money should never motivate students,” the initiative seems to avoid this general condemnation. Instead of paying students directly (last September, for example, Chicago Public Schools started a program called Green for Grade$ where students could earn $50 for each A), this initiative feeds into a class fund that is then used to further the students’ education.
At first blush, such a program seems to avoid the objection of bribery while remaining flexible to the individual schools. Rather than the government setting a general goal, the classes themselves set the attendance and performance benchmarks, leaving the government in charge of how much to offer each class relative to the quality of the benchmark. In addition, specifying that the money goes to a class fund for the class as a whole – not for individual students – offers the possibility for the incentive itself to further encourage education – such as by using the money for class driving lessons.
The question, then, is: do the incentive programs work? How would you engineer a government-financed incentive program for encouraging education and attendance, or are material incentives off-limits from the start? Do you use incentive programs in your classroom? Come offer your strategies and criticisms with us online by joining the Applebatch Teacher Network!
Student performance-based incentives do work - the research proves it.
ReplyDeleteo Paying for A’s – Margaret Raymond of Stanford’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO) conducting a study exploring the impact of incentives on student achievement in 250 charter schools in 17 states. The results highlight that reward programs produced consistent and positive results across grades on state achievement tests in reading, adding 4 percentile points to the average student’s performance each year the student participated in the rewards program.
o Incentives to Learn-Kenyan girls showed significant gains in test scores which persisted even after incentives were removed.
o APIP – Increased the number of minority students passing exams from 10 in 1995 to 366 in 2006; 33% increase in the number of students scoring above 1100 on SAT or 24 on the ACT;8% increase in the number of students who matriculate in college.
o Israel – Professors at the Hebrew University and MIT conducted an experimental study in 2001, published in the American Economic Review showing that twelfth grade students who received monetary rewards for passing their matriculation exams received higher grades. In addition, more students attended higher education than their peers who did not receive rewards.