Children should be Paid to Go to School

[Michael Noire]

http://cleveland.cbslocal.com/2012/02/13/cincinnati-high-school-paying-students-to-come-to-school/

So in one school, they started paying kids with small sums of money and gift cards for good attendance. I read the responses of parents and other citizens and found the average American hates this idea - in one scenario punitive measures against the parents - sending parents to jail for a day was one of the proposed alternatives. While this happened in Cincinnati, in Chicago, another school was met with outrage for doing exactly the opposite - fining children $5 for landing themselves in detention.

Now here's the reality of Economics and Free Market theory:

Children respond to payment - they do not respond to punishment. Children growing up in a society where they are being punished associate the punishment with their parents. The problem is Children are very clever - and unless their parents have a stellar track record - which most do not - the children consider the parents to be unqualified moral and legal authorities. Meanwhile, children associate gifts and cash flow with success and holiday super heroes like an Easter Bunny, Santa Clause, or some headless pumpkin guy who forces strangers to give them snacks - in other words, getting stuff is cool, earning stuff is cool, and money is cool, and acts like it's own incentive.

Where this system fails, it also costs the school NOTHING. It's a logic even a child can understand. The punishment for failing attendance is NOT GETTING FREE MONEY. In the grander scheme of things, this system should be expanded all the way through grad school. As it is, Many grad students get their loans expunged and many even get paid for grad school while learning to become professors or other professionals as interns. Old apprenticeships worked this way.

I've also had the opportunity to observe college students both at community, four year public, four year private, and private universities with graduate schools in three different states. I found the students who managed to do well had a higher proportion of cash returns for attendance compared to their base incomes, while those who dropped out often did so for financial reasons, and those who could not make it the first time failed to secure more than an initial semester's worth of income.

Put another way - community college students who could use the grant money toward things like rent or purchasing power took college more seriously and studied harder, while students who didn't have a financial incentive - such as having parents pay for everything but also getting nothing in return - felt less connected to the institution and their studies. Wealthy students who received greater rewards for performance also tended to outperform those who were allowed to merely "coast along".

In reality, a job is a place where you go and do things you may or may not enjoy, but you tend to go because you get paid in one way or another. By treating the bulk of education as a job, we can cultivate a work ethic and inspire people to increase their skills set.


After thoughts,
This is no different psychologically from the Room and Board apprenticeships, the men seeking the dowry of the wives, the potential brides seeking to achieve the best mate, or even the teenager or youth who expects a car upon graduation.

Hard asses will claim they walked on water uphill both ways through the snow to get to school and liked it, but we all know those people are full of s**t.

[tererun the horrifying]

If you want to bribe your child to go to school because you think bribery is a good response to inappropriate behavior, feel free to take up that piss poor parenting idea with your money and your children. We have enough tax problems as is without pissing more money down the hole of a loser child. Even if we did not have a budget gap I could find much better uses for money than trying to bribe some ******** kid to study and go to school.

I would be willing to pay some out of work strong man to take a stick and beat the worthless kids until they shut the ******** up and study. I may not be entirely correct, but I would be willing to bet that you can attempt to bribe a kid to study all you want, but continual a** beatings to children to encourage them to study harder and get better grades is probably going to do far more for encouraging them to shut the ******** up and study. Really, which do you think will encourage a child to study? get better grades and i will give you five bucks, or get better grades or I will beat your a**? hell, it doesn't even have to be an a** beating. Get better grades or next semester you get no TV or internet is going to work far better than bribery.

The only people who would even consider such an idea valid are children who want to get paid. Every parent knows bribery leads to more bribery, but once you beat their a** good you only need to remind them with some threats.

[washu_2004]

You mean like Austudy or youth allowance?

Australia already has a payment for people over school leaving age who wish to continue their studies.

[Old Blue Collar Joe]

We're in debt up to our eyeballs, with a predicted shortage again this year thanks to stupid ******** decisions from both sides. How, exactly do you expect to fund this retarded plan?
Want to motivate them? Let them grill cheeseburgers for eight hours one day. Then let them dig a ditch for eight hours one day. Then let them go do some office work for a day.
Tell them the difference is education. ******** paying them to go to school when we already pay for the damn school.

[tererun the horrifying]

Old Blue Collar Joe

We're in debt up to our eyeballs, with a predicted shortage again this year thanks to stupid ******** decisions from both sides. How, exactly do you expect to fund this retarded plan?
Want to motivate them? Let them grill cheeseburgers for eight hours one day. Then let them dig a ditch for eight hours one day. Then let them go do some office work for a day.
Tell them the difference is education. ******** paying them to go to school when we already pay for the damn school.

This plan is so bad it made me agree with joe. really noir you should tell this idea to your father. He really needs some motivation to beat his complete waste of flesh of a son in hopes that it kick starts your brain. If he doesn't beat you for this overwhelmingly assinine idea he should be whipped himself for being such an absolute failure as a parent.

[Oiena]

I think college should be free. Is that like the same thing?

[marshmallowcreampie]

Who gives a s**t if they go to school if their grades still suck? In middle and high school I had several classes with morons who thought reading and studying were for nerds, and as a result they got pretty low grades. A lot of them were a nuisance, they were annoying and constantly disrupted class and I prayed every day that they would all get sent to a special class for kids who didn't want to be there.

Wanna know my motivation to get to high school every day? If you were passing and only had 0-3 absences, you would get exempt from your tests at the end of the year. cat_cool I don't mind incentives to encourage kids to come to school, but does it really have to be money? Schools are already low on funds, having to cut back on teachers, programs, quality lunch, and building maintenance. We don't need schools using money to bribe stupid kids to come to school and listen to their iPod all day and talk loudly and make fun of other kids for being literate.

[Aries.Girl.Loves.Dance]

washu_2004

You mean like Austudy or youth allowance?

Australia already has a payment for people over school leaving age who wish to continue their studies.

The more and more I look at education in other countries the more I realize we don't take it seriously enough in the United States.

The truth is it's hard for kids to see the incentive of getting a good education. I can't be sure if that's because we don't show it to them or because they don't care to see it but I find it hard to believe that most kids would throw the opportunity away if they really understood the value and my belief seems reinforced by other countries.

In the US there seems to be more incentive to not go to school seeing as students get almost ZERO support. Other countries are really big on making sure kids who want to learn are able to learn through programs like the one you mentioned as well as reduced cost overall. We have some loan programs but they are sub-par and the loan regulations for student loans are ridiculous. We literally have the same restraints as criminals when it comes to loan forgiveness and bankruptcy. How do you convince a child they should work hard in high school so they can go to a university that cost 20-60k a year and get up to their eyeballs in debt so they can HOPEFULLY have a proper career and pay it all off in the future. The way the economy is looking right now that seems like a crap deal.

Positive reinforcement is better than negative. We are wired to respond to rewards and motivated to act when we think we will get rewarded. Punishment just doesn't work as a motivating tool as fear mostly just has negative effects.

I remember watching something about a study on a high school where they did pay students for attendance and good grades and I can't remember the effects at all but I believe it was positive. Maybe not as positive as they would have imagined but definitely positive.

Perhaps paying kids is not the right way but we are doing something wrong and we need to fix it.

[Mutt]

I use to get paid to go to school then I took an arrow to the knee.

[Kiumaru]

Well, where are the schools going to acquire such funds in the first place? Taxes?

Also, attendance doesn't mean much if they aren't doing well. It's a step in the right direction but this will only associate going to school with getting money. While this might be beneficial for getting certain people to go to school at all, it might have some negative consequences in that people might only be motivated if they get paid.

[marshmallowcreampie]

Aries.Girl.Loves.Dance

The more and more I look at education in other countries the more I realize we don't take it seriously enough in the United States.

The truth is it's hard for kids to see the incentive of getting a good education. I can't be sure if that's because we don't show it to them or because they don't care to see it but I find it hard to believe that most kids would throw the opportunity away if they really understood the value and my belief seems reinforced by other countries.

In the US there seems to be more incentive to not go to school seeing as students get almost ZERO support. Other countries are really big on making sure kids who want to learn are able to learn through programs like the one you mentioned as well as reduced cost overall. We have some loan programs but they are sub-par and the loan regulations for student loans are ridiculous. We literally have the same restraints as criminals when it comes to loan forgiveness and bankruptcy. How do you convince a child they should work hard in high school so they can go to a university that cost 20-60k a year and get up to their eyeballs in debt so they can HOPEFULLY have a proper career and pay it all off in the future. The way the economy is looking right now that seems like a crap deal.

Positive reinforcement is better than negative. We are wired to respond to rewards and motivated to act when we think we will get rewarded. Punishment just doesn't work as a motivating tool as fear mostly just has negative effects.

I remember watching something about a study on a high school where they did pay students for attendance and good grades and I can't remember the effects at all but I believe it was positive. Maybe not as positive as they would have imagined but definitely positive.

Perhaps paying kids is not the right way but we are doing something wrong and we need to fix it.

I don't know how it is in other countries, but I think part of the problem is how much a lack of education is glorified in youth culture. It certainly produces a challenge, it's hard to teach a kid when he thinks learning and reading are for "nerds". Kids and teenagers don't really think long-term much of the time, when they slack off in school it's not because they're thinking "What's the point? No matter what education I get, I won't have a good job in ten years". It's because they're thinking "Why should I study? Studying is for nerds, I want to just go out and party!".

Though, there are kids who do want to learn, and I do think the school system should be improved, even if it will only help those kids. (I'm not sure what can be done about the kids who go "omg reeding iz 4 nerdz", I'm sure there's some way but I don't know it) One of the big problems with US education, I think, is that a lot of schools spend so much time trying to force the book-hating kids to catch up that the students willing to learn suffer as a result. I'm not saying "give up on the less studious kids" but I am saying "don't try to 'save' the book-hating kids at the total expensive of the kids who want to learn". High school, in particular, I was in a lot of classes where the other students didn't give a s**t and they just talked a lot in class, which made it hard for me to concentrate, and it made it harder for the teacher to continue with the lessons. Every day, I prayed to every god I could think of that those kids would get transferred to a special class for people who don't want to be in school... Well, anyway, I wasn't smart enough to get in the advanced class so I had to suffer through sitting in a class with loud morons who constantly disrupted class, preventing me from learning anything.

Edit: Or maybe schools can try looking for things that the kids would be interested in? Stuff that still has educational value but they would enjoy. My English class had the WORST students, but the one assignment they really paid attention to? "A Modest Proposal", an old essay that (sarcastically) suggested eating babies as a solution to poverty. They really responded to baby-eating as comedy, and they did well on the assignments for it.

[washu_2004]

Aries.Girl.Loves.Dance

washu_2004

You mean like Austudy or youth allowance?

Australia already has a payment for people over school leaving age who wish to continue their studies.

The more and more I look at education in other countries the more I realize we don't take it seriously enough in the United States.

The truth is it's hard for kids to see the incentive of getting a good education. I can't be sure if that's because we don't show it to them or because they don't care to see it but I find it hard to believe that most kids would throw the opportunity away if they really understood the value and my belief seems reinforced by other countries.

In the US there seems to be more incentive to not go to school seeing as students get almost ZERO support. Other countries are really big on making sure kids who want to learn are able to learn through programs like the one you mentioned as well as reduced cost overall. We have some loan programs but they are sub-par and the loan regulations for student loans are ridiculous. We literally have the same restraints as criminals when it comes to loan forgiveness and bankruptcy. How do you convince a child they should work hard in high school so they can go to a university that cost 20-60k a year and get up to their eyeballs in debt so they can HOPEFULLY have a proper career and pay it all off in the future. The way the economy is looking right now that seems like a crap deal.

Positive reinforcement is better than negative. We are wired to respond to rewards and motivated to act when we think we will get rewarded. Punishment just doesn't work as a motivating tool as fear mostly just has negative effects.

I remember watching something about a study on a high school where they did pay students for attendance and good grades and I can't remember the effects at all but I believe it was positive. Maybe not as positive as they would have imagined but definitely positive.

Perhaps paying kids is not the right way but we are doing something wrong and we need to fix it.

I have noticed that as well, we have HECS where the cost of university tuition is covered by the government until the student's income reaches a certain threshold then repayments are taken out with the PAYE tax payments that person makes with each paycheck. (which is why I am down $250 each week for the next 15 years until I pay my debt)

In America from what I understand , the situation is that the student is expected to get a student loan which they have to start paying off the day they graduate regardless of if they have a job to make the payments...

[tererun the horrifying]

Aries.Girl.Loves.Dance

washu_2004

You mean like Austudy or youth allowance?

Australia already has a payment for people over school leaving age who wish to continue their studies.

The more and more I look at education in other countries the more I realize we don't take it seriously enough in the United States.

The truth is it's hard for kids to see the incentive of getting a good education. I can't be sure if that's because we don't show it to them or because they don't care to see it but I find it hard to believe that most kids would throw the opportunity away if they really understood the value and my belief seems reinforced by other countries.

In the US there seems to be more incentive to not go to school seeing as students get almost ZERO support. Other countries are really big on making sure kids who want to learn are able to learn through programs like the one you mentioned as well as reduced cost overall. We have some loan programs but they are sub-par and the loan regulations for student loans are ridiculous. We literally have the same restraints as criminals when it comes to loan forgiveness and bankruptcy. How do you convince a child they should work hard in high school so they can go to a university that cost 20-60k a year and get up to their eyeballs in debt so they can HOPEFULLY have a proper career and pay it all off in the future. The way the economy is looking right now that seems like a crap deal.

Positive reinforcement is better than negative. We are wired to respond to rewards and motivated to act when we think we will get rewarded. Punishment just doesn't work as a motivating tool as fear mostly just has negative effects.

I remember watching something about a study on a high school where they did pay students for attendance and good grades and I can't remember the effects at all but I believe it was positive. Maybe not as positive as they would have imagined but definitely positive.

Perhaps paying kids is not the right way but we are doing something wrong and we need to fix it.

One of the problems that is out there is adults lie their asses off to kids, and kids tend to see the truth but do not fully understand it because they do not have the experience to properly deal with it. I will explain that better. A kid in high school is told that their grades are important. For 99 percent of those students they realize they are not the top of their class. The kids at the top of the class are going to have a hard time moving on to important careers but the ones that are not there are not going to even come close to that. They are going to fit in somewhere on the middle and low end of education. This is an obvious thing most kids get because they see the world, and they see that most people do general service jobs. So as a kid sees it unless you are at the head of the race, getting all concerned about being the best in school is a lot of wasted effort. Now their parents come along and try to motivate them that they might be part of the top 1 percent if they applied themselves, but kids know the score by that time, and they know in the competitive world that their past does not stand up to the top 1 percent and all the work in the world is not going to get them there.

That is the perception that a kid has, and it is true, but there is something they do not realize. That specialization you can get in school can place the people in the middle into a career that they enjoy, and a little bit of extra knowledge may not be necessary but it does come in handy a whole lot of times. It is hard to say exactly where and when it makes a difference to a kid because that is something that comes in hind sight and is situational to the individual. Kids do not want to hear that and adults get tired of repeating themselves so they fall back on lies to scare kids, and that does not work well because kids see the truth.

[Aries.Girl.Loves.Dance]

marshmallowcreampie

I don't know how it is in other countries, but I think part of the problem is how much a lack of education is glorified in youth culture. It certainly produces a challenge, it's hard to teach a kid when he thinks learning and reading are for "nerds". Kids and teenagers don't really think long-term much of the time, when they slack off in school it's not because they're thinking "What's the point? No matter what education I get, I won't have a good job in ten years". It's because they're thinking "Why should I study? Studying is for nerds, I want to just go out and party!".

Though, there are kids who do want to learn, and I do think the school system should be improved, even if it will only help those kids. (I'm not sure what can be done about the kids who go "omg reeding iz 4 nerdz", I'm sure there's some way but I don't know it) One of the big problems with US education, I think, is that a lot of schools spend so much time trying to force the book-hating kids to catch up that the students willing to learn suffer as a result. I'm not saying "give up on the less studious kids" but I am saying "don't try to 'save' the book-hating kids at the total expensive of the kids who want to learn". High school, in particular, I was in a lot of classes where the other students didn't give a s**t and they just talked a lot in class, which made it hard for me to concentrate, and it made it harder for the teacher to continue with the lessons. Every day, I prayed to every god I could think of that those kids would get transferred to a special class for people who don't want to be in school... Well, anyway, I wasn't smart enough to get in the advanced class so I had to suffer through sitting in a class with loud morons who constantly disrupted class, preventing me from learning anything.

Edit: Or maybe schools can try looking for things that the kids would be interested in? Stuff that still has educational value but they would enjoy. My English class had the WORST students, but the one assignment they really paid attention to? "A Modest Proposal", an old essay that (sarcastically) suggested eating babies as a solution to poverty. They really responded to baby-eating as comedy, and they did well on the assignments for it.

Allot of that is mindset and environment. We need to start young. I went to private school until 4th grade then we moved to an area where the public school system was much better than most private schools in the area. I NEVER thought or encountered that "reading was for nerds" idea or anything along those lines until then. I was taught that school was fun and when I did well in school I felt good about myself. When I did bad I was sad. My parents never, ever punished me for bad grades in fact I probably did more punishing of myself because I was disappointed I didn't meet my expectations and I knew they would be disappointed as well.

I attribute this to the emphasis my parents placed on my learning. My Mom and Dad read me books and watched educational shows with me. I started preschool when I was 3 and was always in an environment where I was encouraged to grow and learn.

I'm well aware that all kids don't have the advantages I did but we should do more about that. Kids wouldn't think "reading is for nerds!" if they were shown from a young age that it was fun and beneficial.

Also, I know how annoying those types of kids can be. In fact I made a point to take honors and AP class solely to avoid those very kids. The truth of the matter is their opinions stem from ignorance. We have to make kids understand the value of education and be willing and excited to work for it. Grounding them and yelling at them is not nearly as effective as putting them in a nurturing and rewarding learning environment. As you pointed out with the "A Modest Proposal" assignment when kids find it fun and/or interesting they will put more into it and get more out of it. Even I still realize that I work harder on things I'm interested in working on.

Perhaps our system and our teaching methods need an overhaul.

washu_2004

I have noticed that as well, we have HECS where the cost of university tuition is covered by the government until the student's income reaches a certain threshold then repayments are taken out with the PAYE tax payments that person makes with each paycheck. (which is why I am down $250 each week for the next 15 years until I pay my debt)

In America from what I understand , the situation is that the student is expected to get a student loan which they have to start paying off the day they graduate regardless of if they have a job to make the payments...

For the most part that's how it works. I think there is a 6 month grace period before you start paying for most loans. Allot of it depends on the type of loan too. Federal loans are generally better because some are subsidized (they don't incur interest until after you graduate) and they tend to have lower interest rates. The federal loans have a percentage type thing they take out of your pay check if you choose that option and if you go into certain fields (education and military I think...) the debt is forgiven after a few years.

There is a cap on how much you can get depending on your year in school that ranges from 7-15k. I don't know how much you know about the cost of higher education in the US but...that's not much. Scholarships and grants are great but EVERYONE wants them so it's hard to get them. They also aren't usually for that much.

If you can't make up the cost with those options and you don't have the money outright there are private loans which aren't too much different than the Fed loans other than that they are provided by "private" companies and sometimes have higher rates and require harder credit checks to get.

If that doesn't work then no college for you. (There are community college options that are cheaper but that's a whole bag of chips I don't know I want to get into at the moment...)

The scary thing is that Student Loans are the only type of debt that can't be removed from bankruptcy that isn't debt obtained in a crime. That means if you, for whatever reason, can't find a job to pay off your loans and the the interest compounds to the point that you are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt you are screwed much like a criminal who committed fraud is screwed. There is also talk in Washington about raising the interest rates because the Republicans they don't feel the need to support the federal loan programs.

The whole thing is really just a bad conundrum to make money from loan agencies it's downright awful.

emo

[Aries.Girl.Loves.Dance]

tererun the horrifying

One of the problems that is out there is adults lie their asses off to kids, and kids tend to see the truth but do not fully understand it because they do not have the experience to properly deal with it. I will explain that better. A kid in high school is told that their grades are important. For 99 percent of those students they realize they are not the top of their class. The kids at the top of the class are going to have a hard time moving on to important careers but the ones that are not there are not going to even come close to that. They are going to fit in somewhere on the middle and low end of education. This is an obvious thing most kids get because they see the world, and they see that most people do general service jobs. So as a kid sees it unless you are at the head of the race, getting all concerned about being the best in school is a lot of wasted effort. Now their parents come along and try to motivate them that they might be part of the top 1 percent if they applied themselves, but kids know the score by that time, and they know in the competitive world that their past does not stand up to the top 1 percent and all the work in the world is not going to get them there.

That is the perception that a kid has, and it is true, but there is something they do not realize. That specialization you can get in school can place the people in the middle into a career that they enjoy, and a little bit of extra knowledge may not be necessary but it does come in handy a whole lot of times. It is hard to say exactly where and when it makes a difference to a kid because that is something that comes in hind sight and is situational to the individual. Kids do not want to hear that and adults get tired of repeating themselves so they fall back on lies to scare kids, and that does not work well because kids see the truth.

I agree with most of that. I also think we have brainwashed kids into thinking you MUST get A's and B's and you MUST go to a four year college and if you do that you will be a doctor/lawyer/business tycoon and make lots of money. If you do not do this you have failed in life.

Truth is you can go to a professional school and become a really good mechanic or hair stylist and make lots of money and live a comfortable life but we have not been taught to value that type of job. Because of that every kid is going to college to be a doctor/lawyer/ business tycoon and there isn't enough need for everyone to do that. Also many kids don't want to do that type of job but they are taught that "this is what success is" so they go for it anyway.

I like the idea of professional schools for many (dare I say most) careers much like the French system.