Put up or shut up!

How often as an educator have you heard this argument from a student?

"If this is so important why don't I get paid to learn it?"

Maybe not so much, but DC schools and Harvard's Ed Labs are taking the message to heart. The Capital Gains program is active in 14 schools in DC, with about 2,700 kids participating (although about half of these are in the control portion of the experiment). The program exist for middle schoolers, with the average student earning $50 every two weeks and up to $1,500 per year. Students get paid based on their attendance, behavior, and other various measures such as grades or homework completion.

Experimenters are optimistic about the results, but conflicts have already been reported; it remains to be seen whether the problems are with implementation or are inherent to the structure of the program. Critics wonder if paying students to learn erodes intrinsic motivation towards learning. Right now there are no clear results in either direction, but some indication that cash as a motivator works well on hispanic children, boys, and children with certain behavioral disorders, as measured by the DC-CAS test.

What does this mean for the rest of us? Sometimes money can work, other times it can. My theory is that this depends on both the general culture of the community and school and the personal culture established at home by the parent(s). It's not like parents who can afford it do not already have such a system set up with their own children, but those parents individually set the terms of such a reward system. For schools to attempt to do it systematically appears to be complicated at the very least and potentially disruptive if not executed effectively.