This is from a little while ago (originally appearing in the New York Post on June 8th), but I feel it is still relevant.
The Sparks program,started by Harvard University economist Roland Fryer, pays students from high-poverty areas up to $500 for success on standardized school assessments.
Champions of the program hope it will foster a mental correlation between academic effort and "future income" among students.
There are some detractors to this initiative, who call it "Euro-centric" and "capitalistic" and feel that the focus on standardized tests often draws attention away from the process of inquiry and everyday learning in the classroom.
Black Voices has some interesting commentary on this issue, analyzing it in terms of economic advantage and privilege, along with some very provacative responses from readers: Paying Poor Kids for Good Grades Appears to be Working
What do you think? Should children be rewarded for good grades? Or should the self-confidence that comes from understanding and knowledge be reward enough?
It's a fraught issue, but my immediate impulse is, if it's working, hell yes. Especially when you consider that for some poor kids, it may mean the difference between doing well in school, and having to let school go as a priority in order to work a part-time job to help their families.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I just read the comments on that article and I kind of cannot believe how racist they are. "I am so sick of hearing them whine about how bad they have it. Well wake up! At this point black Americans, if your life sucks it's probably because of something you did or did not do. We have a black president for God's sakes. Don't try to tell me that you don't have opportunity. How about teaching your children to behave!" And many of those comments are from teachers... ugh. I feel kind of sick.
ReplyDeleteWell, I get paid to go to school. Nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with that. Of course not! I'm white and privileged! I deserve to have money showered on me, because I always have! Nobody's ever told *me* that it's solely my own responsibility to pull myself up by my bootstraps out of poverty, and if I don't it's because there's something wrong with me, not because of racism or from being disadvantaged from before I was even conceived.
I have so much more to say on this topic, and in response to the arguments made by those commenters, but I can't because I'm too mad to sort it all out. I'll just close by saying: right, this idea is evil because it is "capitalistic"... and we all know that capitalism is only supposed to benefit white privileged people. Duh.
Honestly, as an urban educator myself I think this is a great idea. Those who disagree have never put themselves in the shoes of an urban teen.
ReplyDeleteMany of my students take care of younger siblings or work after school jobs in order to help support their family. Unlike their wealthy suburban peers who may work only in the summer (although the summer job is becoming more and more of a rarity for affluent teens in favor of test prep courses and internships, I shudder for the generation that will grow up without the character building experience of folding t shirts at the gap for minimum wage) and have the luxury of putting school first in the winter/fall, urban kids need to work for survival. They don't have the ability to show up for after school tutoring or test prep, let alone join clubs and teams or audition for school plays so they can have something to put on their college resumes because they are working to survive. They aren't studying because their lives are full of responsibilities the average suburban kid doesn't have at their age, not because as so many pundits will tell you, "these minority kids aren't like us and they don't care about educating themselves."
By paying kids to study you are eliminating the need to work a shitty job that does not prepare them for higher education, creating a situation where they have what most other kids have--- the opportunity to pull themselves up by their bootstraps (lord I hate that expression for so many reasons) by getting to do what most normal American kids already have the time to do... study.
In a perfect world, everybody would learn for learning's sake, but learning for learning's sake does not put food in your mouth or a roof over your head.
Amen, fever.
ReplyDelete