Facing the increasing pressure to raise students' scores on standardized tests, schools are urging kids to work harder by offering them obvious encouragements. Happy Meals are at the low end of the scale. With the help of business, schools are also giving away cars, iPods, seats to basketball games, and—in a growing number of cases—cold, hard cash. The appeal of such programs is obvious, but the consequences of tying grades to goods are still uncertain. It's been a common tradition in middle-class families to reward top grades with cash as a way to teach that success in school leads to success in life. But for many disadvantaged minority children, the long-term benefits of getting an education are not so clear, according to experts.
No one knows for sure how well cash and other big-ticket rewards work in education in the long run. But there are plenty of concerns that the kind of practice could have negative effects on kids. Virginia Shiller, a clinical psychologist, says that it's worth experimenting with cash encouragements but that tying them to success on a test is not a worthwhile goal. "I'd rather see rewards based on effort and responsibility — things that will lead to success in life, " she says.
Even if rewards don't lead to individual achievement on a test, they could have a meaningful effect in the school. Charles McVean, a businessman and philanthropist(慈善家), started a tutoring program which pays higher-achieving students $10 an hour to tutor struggling classmates and divides them into teams. During the course of the year, students bond(团结) and compete. The team posting the highest math scores wins the top cash prize of $100. McVean calls the combination of peer tutoring, competition, and cash encouragements a recipe for "nothing less than magic".
For its part, the Seminole County Public School System in Florida plans to continue its report card encouragement program through the rest of the school year. The local McDonald's restaurants help the poor district by paying the $1, 600 cost of printing the report card. Regina Klaers, the district spokeswoman, says most parents don't seem bothered by the Happy Meals rewards. "There are many ways we try to urge students to do well, and sometimes it's through the stomach, and sometimes it's the probability of students winning a car," she says. "One size doesn't fit all."
