Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School?

[classicman]

To find out, a Harvard economist named Roland Fryer Jr. did something education researchers almost never do: he ran a randomized experiment in hundreds of classrooms in multiple cities. He used mostly private money to pay 18,000 kids a total of $6.3 million and brought in a team of researchers to help him analyze the effects. He got death threats, but he carried on. The results, which he shared exclusively with TIME, represent the largest study of financial incentives in the classroom - and one of the more rigorous studies ever on anything in education policy. (See Roland Fryer Jr. in the 2009 TIME 100.)

The experiment ran in four cities: Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York. Each city had its own unique model of incentives, to see which would work best. Some kids were paid for good test scores, others for not fighting with one another. The results are fascinating and surprising. They remind us that kids, like grownups, are not puppets. They don't always respond the way we expect.

In the city where Fryer expected the most success, the experiment had no effect at all - "as zero as zero gets," as he puts it. In two other cities, the results were promising but in totally different ways. In the last city, something remarkable happened. Kids who got paid all year under a very elegant scheme performed significantly better on their standardized reading tests at the end of the year. Statistically speaking, it was as if those kids had spent three extra months in school, compared with their peers who did not get paid.

"These are substantial effects, as large as many other interventions that people have thought to be successful," says Brian Jacob, a University of Michigan public-policy and economics professor who has studied incentives and who reviewed Fryer's study at TIME's request. If incentives are designed wisely, it appears, payments can indeed boost kids' performance as much as or more than many other reforms you've heard about before - and for a fraction of the cost.

Money is not enough. (It never is.) But for some kids, it may be part of the solution. In the end, we all want our children to grow into self-motivated adults. The question is, How do we help them get there? And is it possible that at least for some kids, the road is paved not with stickers but with $20 bills?

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If it worked it'd be cheaper than welfare and better for the economy.

[Shawnee123]

Gimme 60 bucks and I'll answer this question.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Gimme 60 bucks and I'll answer this question.

girl can't help herself. tsk, tsk.

[skysidhe]

Some parents give their kids an allowance and withhold it if they get out of line. I wasn't one of those kids but we got things like horses and goats. Horses,NICE....the goat,,,not so much.

[Griff]

Heh, my kids only get goats.

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Worse, his goats only get kids.

HA!

Originally Posted by Griff

Heh, my kids only get goats.

I saw your goats. Cream sable and soft. They look like nice goats! and they produce babies which I am sure get lots of ooohs and awws.


This goat produced nothing but mayhem.He was white skinny and liked to knock us down and eat our hair.I don't think my dad liked running outside to save his kids (young at the time )from the man eating goat so the goat got sold. Well he disappeared anyway.

All the animals did after awhile until only the horses were left and we were old enough to take care of them ourselves by then and we never minded not getting an allowance or paid.

Originally Posted by classicman

Room & Board are not free. Nor are the vacations, movies and most other whims parents pay for today. Kids today don't see that as much as I think those of past generations did. They all but expect mommy & daddy to pay for things.

When I was a kid all of us kids used to pick berries to pay for concert tickets. I'm not sure what kids do these days to earn money.

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by skysidhe

...
When I was a kid all of us kids used to pick berries to pay for concert tickets. I'm not sure what kids do these days to earn money.

Hey little girl, did you hoard all of those nickels yourself?

No, my sister whored half of them.

[ZenGum]

Worse, his goats only get kids.

[DanaC]

Well, it does kind of seem strange that we, as adults, expect to be rewarded for our efforts, but we expect kids to just do it for love of doing it.

They grow up in a world where people are financially compensated for their time and efforts, but their own efforts are expected to be given freely.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by DanaC

They grow up in a world where people are financially compensated for their time and efforts, but their own efforts are expected to be given freely.

Room & Board are not free. Nor are the vacations, movies and most other whims parents pay for today. Kids today don't see that as much as I think those of past generations did. They all but expect mommy & daddy to pay for things.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Well, it does kind of seem strange that we, as adults, expect to be rewarded for our efforts, but we expect kids to just do it for love of doing it.

They grow up in a world where people are financially compensated for their time and efforts, but their own efforts are expected to be given freely.

Knowing what I know about you...don't you love learning for the sake of learning? I was never compensated for my efforts as a kid, but there was a fair exchange of "if you did what you were supposed to do, yeah, I guess we can swing some money for you to go to the movies."

My mom did teach me to love learning. We actually talked about that today, my mom and older brother and I. She said "aren't you glad I wanted you to THINK?" My brother and I agreed that a free exchange of thought and ideas is learning, and its own reward.

They didn't have to bribe me to do well. I was happy with the results, and bolstered by the look of pride on my parents' faces when I succeeded.

Now, the looks on their faces when I fucked up? That's another thread!

edit: my older brother is quite the conservative, and, well, you know me.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Knowing what I know about you...don't you love learning for the sake of learning? I was never compensated for my efforts as a kid, but there was a fair exchange of "if you did what you were supposed to do, yeah, I guess we can swing some money for you to go to the movies."
.

I love learning for the sake of it, and I would not have been particularly motivated by financial reward as a kid ... I'm barely motivated by it as an adult :P

I was just pointing out the cultural trappings which surround our youngsters. We live in an intensely money oriented society. We expect children to grow up to appreciate that fact; it's what they will be expected to live by when they grow up.

Money as reward was never a part of my childhood. Pocket money was a factor; but it wasn't tagged to housework or schoolwork or anything like that. It was just something that came around every Friday.

They may well learn for the love of it ...but if they don't, then they're still stuck in the system learning: they don't get a choice in the matter. Some kids aren't motivated by a desire to learn. Or, rather aren't sufficiently motivated. Of course, it helps if stuff comes naturally. It helps if you're good at learning and schoolwork. Not everybody is. We make an equation in life between work and reward; but we expect children to accept that the reward is intrinsic and get on with it. having surrounded them with that message, why not take advantage of the fact that some children have learned rather earlier that work is work and not play ? Once they've reached that conclusion it is very difficult to unlearn it.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I love learning for the sake of it, and I would not have been particularly motivated by financial reward as a kid ... I'm barely motivated by it as an adult :P
~snip~
Money as reward was never a part of my childhood. Pocket money was a factor; but it wasn't tagged to housework or schoolwork or anything like that. It was just something that came around every Friday.

I would posit you loved learning, not for the sake of it, but for the reward... the stimulation of your imagination and usefulness of the knowledge.
Whereas the money came without effort, every Friday.
If you had to earn the money, you might see the reward of pursuing it, but even now it comes as a result of pursuing what you want, and not it. Most people in the world don't have that option, and need the pursuit of money, or some equivalent, to survive. So it's not necessarily a bad thing to teach the children... in moderation, of course.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I would posit you loved learning, not for the sake of it, but for the reward... the stimulation of your imagination and usefulness of the knowledge.
Whereas the money came without effort, every Friday.
If you had to earn the money, you might see the reward of pursuing it, but even now it comes as a result of pursuing what you want, and not it. Most people in the world don't have that option, and need the pursuit of money, or some equivalent, to survive. So it's not necessarily a bad thing to teach the children... in moderation, of course.

That was similar to my original point. The adult world works on a model in which work=wages. Kids may well see a dissonance between that and the expectations put on them by adults.

I realise that actually, kids get all sorts from their parents and that it costs those parents tens of thousands of pounds/dollars to raise them; however, they are not usually a part of that equation. It isn't a negotiation like it is in the adult world. They have no choice but to go through education, and they are expected to throw themselves at it, regardless of whether they actually enjoy it or not; regardless of whether they are in fact willing; and regardless of whether or not they consider it 'work'. They are expected, for the most part, to exert their energies on tasks set them by an adult, for no reward other than which is intrinsic: love of learning/satisfaction/fun etc.

We then expect them to leave that situation and move into the adult world in which few work for free, and work is primarily a negotiated relationship. For some kids (I was one of these) that move is uncomfortable and a world in which work = reward is an alien concept. For others, being held in a situation where their work is expected and demanded but not compensated, may seem unfair and unreasonable when they can see through the window into an adult world, where work is negotiated and compensated.

Those kids who feel the dissonance when they are children may well benefit from being able to engage in an early form of work and reward negotiation.

[Clodfobble]

Parents began using the paychecks as progress reports, contacting teachers to find out why their kids' checks had gone up or down.

Just like with the iPods that school district was giving away in another thread... it's not just about bribing the kids.

It's actually a nicely self-selecting group: the parents who don't want their kids to participate in such a bribery program are the parents who are already going to be doing a better job of raising their kids. The parents who think it's a great idea for their kid are the ones who aren't going to be doing a great job anyway, so for those kids it might very well be the most effective option.