In class today, as an introduction to the soundless video, we discussed the concept of monetizing school, work, and life itself. I, prior to this discussion had read the most recent TIME magazine which included an article on the monetary compensation of students in struggling schools in predominantly inner city neighborhoods across America. Studies were run in Chicago, New York, Dallas and Washington. A different approach was taken in each city. Chicago rewarded students for good grades, Washington for good behavior and attendance, NYC for test scores, and the only unanimously positive result, Dallas rewarded students for each book read during the initiative.The initiative was launched by Roland Fryer, an economics professor at Harvard, who scoured the country looking for schools to participate in the study. The feat was not as easily said than done. The majority of schools stuck to their moral guns saying that students should learn for the love of learning, despite the majority of these schools testing well below state standards.
The result of the study showed that some incentives worked better than others. The only city that showed extremely positive results was in Dallas where they paid students per book read, and consequently test scores in reading increased. The interesting part is that Dallas had the lowest amound earned per student at $13.81 versus Chicago students that on average earned a whopping $695.61. This statistic alone lead me to believe that there was no correlation between compensation and grades and standardized test scores. Whats your first impression? Did you, like me say "of course it will help"? Would such an initiative have an impact at New Trier?
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