Should Kids be Paid for Good Grades?

Posted Tuesday, March 3, 2009, at 10:19 AM

Within the last year I read a report that really startled me - Schools (through private donors) are paying kids for good grades. At first (and still a little bit) I was outraged. I was never a kid that got paid for good grades, it was expected of me. My husband disagrees and thinks it a motivator for kids and that school is their job, therefore they should be paid. So, in other words we seem to be the typical American family on the fence.

Since I heard one school was doing it, I googled the topic and there is actually a wealth of information out there about kids being paid for grades. In a program in Chicago students could earn up to $4,000 in high school for getting good grades. The one catch with this program is that after sophomore year, you receive no cash in hand but will be given to your earnings for junior/senior year after graduation. The argument for this program (and most programs I found) was to increase attendance (usually in poorer areas/schools). The kids interviewed for the Chicago program were very excited to be getting money and said that it made them want to achieve more.

Another program tried in Washington D.C. gives the kids "pretend money." The "pretend" money is then used to buy stuff at a school store for items such as pens capped with fluffy feathers, pencil cases shaped like animals and colorful erasers. Students here were proud of their stuff because it "showed" how hard they work for their good grades. This is an interesting take on the being paid for grades in that you are paid, but you have to buy, admittedly cool, stuff that you use everyday in school anyway.

When I was in fourth grade we kind of had a similar program. Our teacher gave us punch cards for good behavior. At the end of the day she would punch them accordingly and for each full punch card you would receive an award. I remember saving 4 punch cards for a toothbrush/toothpaste kit. At the time (and even as a parent) I found no real problem with this. As a kid, you wanted to get your rewards as fast you could so you had to be good in class (not grade wise, just behavorial) and as a parent I can say, it taught me to save to get the big reward. (Some rewards were only one punch card.) Looking back at this, it does make me wonder why I'm not okay with paying for grades when I was okay with getting rewards for behavior.

But maybe that's the difference. Behavior vs. Grades. For those that use the job argument to justify paying for grades, is behavior not just as important as getting the job done? An employer wouldn't put up with an employee throwing a fit even if they were one of the best at the job. Course you can make the argument that the two go hand in hand and one affects the other. In some cases, I think they do but in others, I see kids who only put their eye to the prize and will do anything to get the A. As all of these programs are fairly new, there is no study that says whether it has found kids are cheating more or the actual long term success of these programs.

Proponents for paying grades argue that it is the kids job, that it motivates them and that it increases attendance and test scores at schools. People against the paying for grades will point out that with many kids, payment is a short term fix. The child will improve for awhile, but then they don't care or they want more more money. There is also the argument of having more than one child and having one of them with learning disabilities. In this case the proponent would say you have a different scale for each child: The child that does well should be paid on grades but the child with disabilities should be paid for improving their grades or other improvements.

Whatever you believe and works for you and your children is, in the end, going to be the best compromise you get out of this debate. Another way to look at paying without paying money is to offer rewards to the child of going out to eat, to a park or something they would enjoy. As for schools looking to increase attendance, they could offer field trips, more play time once a week (for the younger kids) or as Le Mars Community did when I was back in high school - they made it so you didn't have to take semester tests if your grades are good enough. It did increase attendance in the first year (though I couldn't tell you how much) because I remember they got a coke truck that had video games and free coke to come to the school and invited all the kids to enjoy it. I have heard the program has changed a little since then, which is good, because once in college you don't have the choice of skipping semester tests and you need to know how to study for them.

In the end I haven't changed my mind and my daughter won't be getting any money from me (though at this point she still earns, Ms, Es and the like). However, I am more open to the idea then I was before. We'll see if my husband can sway me by the time she's in middle school... Good luck honey.