2008 Woodie Awards
B-more schools spending wrong money for the wrong reasons
Andrew Zaleski
Issue date: 2/5/08 Section: Opinion
Paying kids up to $110 for improved test scores?
Are you kidding me?
The Baltimore Sun reported on Jan. 23, 2008 that the Baltimore school system was planning on paying high schools students anywhere from $25 to $110 for improving test performances on the Maryland state graduation exams.
Using a little under $1 million of an allocated $6.3 million set aside to aid students in passing Maryland's High School Assessments, the Baltimore school system is proposing to establish a progressive pay scale of sorts, in which greater improvement on the graduation exams will yield a greater profit for high school students having difficulty passing the exams.
And the funding and allocation for this endeavor is coming from public tax money.
Are you kidding me?
In other words, Baltimore will pay high school students for doing what they're supposed to be doing -- passing. That's analogous to giving your employee a Christmas bonus for not embezzling company funds, or giving me some monetary handout for not getting arrested and thrown in jail.
"Congratulations, you haven't been arrested in the past year!""Great! Wait, was I supposed to have gotten arrested?"
The whole aim of this endeavor is to give underachieving Baltimore students a reason for wanting to perform well in school.
The Baltimore school system probably knows as well as anybody else that money can serve as an excellent motivational tool. The concept of giving some sort of incentive in return for some level of performance isn't exactly a novel idea.
Parents have been employing this tactic on their elementary school-level children for quite some time. If you get an "A," that's $10, a "B," that's $5, and so on. It's not that big a deal.
But, I do have a serious problem with a school system trying to play mommy and daddy, especially if they're trying to parent kids in high school.
Giving kids in elementary school money for top performances in their academics is alright. Chances are this sort of motivational tool will be phased out as kids learn that hard work and a willingness to achieve are valuable skills to have and concepts to practice.
Are you kidding me?
The Baltimore Sun reported on Jan. 23, 2008 that the Baltimore school system was planning on paying high schools students anywhere from $25 to $110 for improving test performances on the Maryland state graduation exams.
Using a little under $1 million of an allocated $6.3 million set aside to aid students in passing Maryland's High School Assessments, the Baltimore school system is proposing to establish a progressive pay scale of sorts, in which greater improvement on the graduation exams will yield a greater profit for high school students having difficulty passing the exams.
And the funding and allocation for this endeavor is coming from public tax money.
Are you kidding me?
In other words, Baltimore will pay high school students for doing what they're supposed to be doing -- passing. That's analogous to giving your employee a Christmas bonus for not embezzling company funds, or giving me some monetary handout for not getting arrested and thrown in jail.
"Congratulations, you haven't been arrested in the past year!""Great! Wait, was I supposed to have gotten arrested?"
The whole aim of this endeavor is to give underachieving Baltimore students a reason for wanting to perform well in school.
The Baltimore school system probably knows as well as anybody else that money can serve as an excellent motivational tool. The concept of giving some sort of incentive in return for some level of performance isn't exactly a novel idea.
Parents have been employing this tactic on their elementary school-level children for quite some time. If you get an "A," that's $10, a "B," that's $5, and so on. It's not that big a deal.
But, I do have a serious problem with a school system trying to play mommy and daddy, especially if they're trying to parent kids in high school.
Giving kids in elementary school money for top performances in their academics is alright. Chances are this sort of motivational tool will be phased out as kids learn that hard work and a willingness to achieve are valuable skills to have and concepts to practice.
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