No, really.
To help boost math and science grades/scores, two Georgia schools are proposing "Learn & Earn" programs that will pay students $8 an hour to attend study hall 4 hours each week during a 15-week pilot program, and offer a bonus if certain scores/grades are reached. Newt Gingrich has been spearheading this privately funded and 'innovative' program that has it's supporters and opponents, as you can well imagine.
A moment, please...
This is not my typical find-a-crazy-news-story that borders unbelievable. I didn't go with the poor Russian woman who returned home after some extended time period in the countryside only to find a local construction company had demolished the wrong house - hers. Or the incredible trip of a kitten in a suitcase that thankfully had a happy ending.
No, this is a story and subject that has valid opinions from all angles...as well as valid concerns. Having been a teacher for 9 years many moons ago (hence my 'wings' to some degree), I am bothered by the idea of paying for achievement...and for that matter, I'm even more bothered by our schools being overly fixated on scores, scores, scores in the first place.
Speaking of school's fixation on scores, don't get me started on Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program, which has done a great deal to create more problems than it solves. It's a program with good rhetoric but absolutely no financial backing to make the rhetoric happen...and the schools get penalized when they don't make the rhetoric happen. That's when other stuff happens. But I digress.
My last year of teaching I was at a Middle school in Richmond, Virginia...and I was rather taken aback by the number of my students who panicked over one point in a test score or report card because it made the difference in them getting $5 or whatever mom and dad were going to pay them for their 'achievement' . Sadly, a job well done is no longer about self worth - it's about 'net' worth. So it seems.
The Georgia programs will help families that have limited finances to begin with, so $8 and hour to study will help put some food on the table, of that there is no doubt. It does provide a constructive activity that could help keep some kids stay out of trouble in the process, and assuming they do well, they'll gain self-esteem. If the overall scores at the schools come up, they benefit by meeting standards and goals. What happens when the program ends is debatable.
I just wonder where it went and when...the idea of doing a job well done and giving your best, with no thought or expectation of a reward. There is no one problem to solve, and no single 'fix' that will aid our increasingly crippled education system. Even though I don't like the undertones of this program, who knows - it just may work.
The story
To help boost math and science grades/scores, two Georgia schools are proposing "Learn & Earn" programs that will pay students $8 an hour to attend study hall 4 hours each week during a 15-week pilot program, and offer a bonus if certain scores/grades are reached. Newt Gingrich has been spearheading this privately funded and 'innovative' program that has it's supporters and opponents, as you can well imagine.
A moment, please...
This is not my typical find-a-crazy-news-story that borders unbelievable. I didn't go with the poor Russian woman who returned home after some extended time period in the countryside only to find a local construction company had demolished the wrong house - hers. Or the incredible trip of a kitten in a suitcase that thankfully had a happy ending.
No, this is a story and subject that has valid opinions from all angles...as well as valid concerns. Having been a teacher for 9 years many moons ago (hence my 'wings' to some degree), I am bothered by the idea of paying for achievement...and for that matter, I'm even more bothered by our schools being overly fixated on scores, scores, scores in the first place.
Speaking of school's fixation on scores, don't get me started on Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program, which has done a great deal to create more problems than it solves. It's a program with good rhetoric but absolutely no financial backing to make the rhetoric happen...and the schools get penalized when they don't make the rhetoric happen. That's when other stuff happens. But I digress.
My last year of teaching I was at a Middle school in Richmond, Virginia...and I was rather taken aback by the number of my students who panicked over one point in a test score or report card because it made the difference in them getting $5 or whatever mom and dad were going to pay them for their 'achievement' . Sadly, a job well done is no longer about self worth - it's about 'net' worth. So it seems.
The Georgia programs will help families that have limited finances to begin with, so $8 and hour to study will help put some food on the table, of that there is no doubt. It does provide a constructive activity that could help keep some kids stay out of trouble in the process, and assuming they do well, they'll gain self-esteem. If the overall scores at the schools come up, they benefit by meeting standards and goals. What happens when the program ends is debatable.
I just wonder where it went and when...the idea of doing a job well done and giving your best, with no thought or expectation of a reward. There is no one problem to solve, and no single 'fix' that will aid our increasingly crippled education system. Even though I don't like the undertones of this program, who knows - it just may work.
The story
5 comments:
Hi Bob,
i totally agree with you, kids should do well and make good grades in school, you should not have to "pay" kids to achieve, same thing with my kids i had to put them in check real quick everytime they cleaned there rooms, they looked for me or my husband to "pay" them.. no you should clean your room anyway, report card time if grades are good, and i do mean good... i may reward with a few dollars sure, but the idea of paying to study.. no way, this school should have re-thought that issue, just my thoughts, have a great day.
Michelle
Thanks for your thoughts, Michelle. The Atlanta-based founder of "Aaron Rents" is funding the whole thing...I much prefer the idea of corporations allowing their professionals to get paid time off to go to schools and tutor. The interaction and role models would have a more beneficial and longer lasting effect, seems to me. Paying money seems so short-term...
Hmm ..... while the program does have SOME “merit” as you mention --- incentive to keep “at-risk” kids out of after-school trouble, “food on the table” for families in extremely impoverished school districts (and God knows there ARE a lot of such districts) --- I don’t believe such a program is really part of a long-term solution to America’s education woes. And while this particular pilot program is privately funded, we all know there are states and school districts around the country that would not be able to secure private funding, and would take this type of program into “their own hands”.
Although neither a parent nor step-parent myself, no, I don’t believe in financially rewarding children for good grades, behavior, or tasks either. Common sense tells me, and my personal belief is, that such “rewards” are a means of “buying” your children’s love, obedience, motivation, etc --- which does NOT help them to learn from their mistakes and grow up to be independent, free-thinking individuals. All the way through H.S., children and teenagers need face-time and hands-on from parents and the influential adults in their lives --- talk about and help with homework, discuss test results and work through the wrong answers, etc. Nor should simple, age-appropriate family chores be monetarily rewarded just for the sake of an “allowance” --- such chores gradually teach responsibility. The REAL reward over time then becomes greater independence, a greater level of mutual trust between parent and child (and trust between siblings), and gradually increased or greater responsibility --- and such a cycle then yields a competent young adult ready to launch themselves in the world. Although I never appreciated it until I was well into my 20’s, as a kid my own parents often told my brothers and I, “we give you roots, and we give you wings”. I am forever grateful.
So back to the “pay to study” idea, I would not “blindly accept” such a program. Among MANY questions I would have for private investors, state legislators, and/or a school district that tries to implement such a program, two of my bigger questions are: 1) Students are already getting a free education in state-funded schools, so if there is NOT private funding, where is this “$8. / hour” coming from, my tax dollars? Is there a proposed millage to increase my already-high “school tax” rate? 2) If you (the state or district, or private investors) have the money to pay these kids for after-school study, why are the students and their families still expected to pay their own way for school-sponsored extracurricular clubs/programs, sports uniforms, away-game travel, and school trips?
There is no easy answer, Bob. But thanks for sharing the interesting story --- it’s important to know what “things might be coming to” in American education. And as always, and in all things, its VERY important to explore ALL sides of an issue, and make a well-informed decision. A.E. Housman wrote, “To stand up straight and tread the turning mill, To lie flat and know nothing and be still, Are the two trades of man; and which is worse I know not, but I know that both are ill.”
P.S. Sorry for the “soapbox” and lengthy post!! :)
Suzy :)
Don't even get me started on No Child Left Behind. As a teacher in the Piedmont, we call it No Teacher Left Standing.
I hate giving grades. As a second grade teacher the kids are already judging themselves by that all important grade. It's terrible when I look into 7 year olds eyes and see that they have already given up and considered themselves failures.
That's why I'm knocking myself out by teaching all day, driving for an hour two nights a week, sitting in grad school class for 3 hours, and getting home at 10. I have to get out. I don't believe in what I am doing anymore. I spend more time testing my kids than teaching.
We are setting kids up to fail. Only the brightest can succeed.
Then we turn around and blame the teachers. We don't consider any other factor - if the kid fails, it's the teacher's fault.
We are putting too much pressure on the kids and the teachers.
I'd like for the folks passing down all these rules to come to my classroom and see what they can do. Sure is easy to make laws when they don't affect you.
God help us.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Everyone should walk in the shoes of a teacher...if they did, a great deal would be changing.
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