Paying Students

Though the title could lead one to believe I am talking about how much students (and parents) pay for an education, I'm actually talking about a new trend that is popping up that educators hope will help boost the overall education level of students and that's by paying them for jobs well done. There are very few kids out there who can honestly say that they enjoy taking tests. Sure there are those with a competitive edge in them about everything who would say that they welcome the opportunity to excel against their peers. Thankfully I was never one of them. But what some schools across the nation are starting to do is to compensate students for doing well on the exam. Though the payout may not seem like much to the average working person (in some cases they pay about $50) but for a student who only gets an allowance it could mean a fortune.

Now I see nothing wrong with incentivizing the education system. It would have certainly encouraged me to always do my best in terms of test taking. I'm also sure that the schools that earn the best scores overall would probably get some monetary compensation as well from the school boards for being the best among the best and therein lies the problem as I see it. I attended a decent high school which was down the road from the county's science and tech high school and though the general student population of both high schools was comparable in terms of overall capabilities and test scores, the science and tech school was the one that always got the glory and the funding. Now while I like to tell myself that the county treated us equally in terms of funding and priority, I don't really believe that to be the case. Our school was the test bed for a new aerospace program that was being proposed for the nation and though students from our high school were among the first students to establish the program, it wasn't until the science and tech high school down the road also established the program that it got the recognition it deserved.

It wasn't until a science project our school developed to be launched on the space shuttle (it went up with John Glenn's shuttle flight) that our school was finally recognized. It was well after I graduated from the high school but it was gratifying to see that our school was finally gaining some noteriety for work they were doing. How does this relate to paying students? Easy, our school didn't gain anything from being the test pilot for new programs until it was spread to the hallmark school for the county. Once it was there then funding flowed; to the other school and not ours. The same way this 'paying students to learn' program will likely work too. As it stands now, in Maryland this program is being attempted in schools in poorer parts of the state where education incentives would undoubtedly help raise scores and though the success rate will likely pale in comparison to some of the better endowed schools in the area, some success will not yield it the additional funding required to help make all schools as successful.

It stands to reason doesn't it? What is better for the county and state overall? One school with great scores or an entire county? Though county leaders will argue that all schools are being treated equally, I beg to differ and retort with the claim that 'all schools may be equal but some are more equal than others'. It may or may not be the complete truth but I feel that there is enough evidence behind this trend to say that schools where funding is often slow to arrive will continue to experience slow growth. Money will continue to go to those schools where the county will see the greatest press coverage and where they can point to better statistics while the mediocre schools will continue to struggle and we'll end up with what I call the treadmill syndrome where we seem to be running fast but not really going anywhere. Instead of just shelling out money to students to incentivize them... try sending some of it to schools that really need it so that they can improve overall, so that they can retain good teachers (we need a lot of them), and so that they truly become equal all around.