Today, perhaps more than at any other time, America is investing in education, spending billions of dollars and countless research hours on education reforms. But if the students don’t come to school, none of these reforms will make a single iota of difference. It could be argued student attendance is the single most important reform in education today; it is the foundation upon which the success of every other reform depends.
As a teacher, I share the overwhelming frustration and disappointment that comes from knowing that if a student would just come to class, that student would succeed. Currently, W.E.B Dubois High School is using an economic incentive program focused on attendance and attendance is up more than 10%. Attendance is a prerequisite for academic success, but it must be catalyzed by additional reforms to give us a real shot at closing the achievement gap in this country.
Some researchers fear that rewarding students for requisite behaviors such as attendance will lead to a decline in motivation when the incentive is removed, but there is no actual evidence to support that fear. To the contrary, there is actually a great deal of data showing that economic incentive programs can actually spark lasting intrinsic motivation. I believe that well-designed incentive programs focusing on increased attendance and rewarding positive behaviors (reading books, doing homework/extra credit assignments, etc.) could be a significant part of the solution to the education crisis in America.
Read more about W.E.B. Dubois High School's Attendance Program here...
http://www.wbaltv.com/news/maryland/education/Baltimore-City-high-school-students-rewarded-for-attendance/-/9379316/19700442/-/vu0vhsz/-/index.html
4 comments:
Interesting! I'm not sure I would separate monetary incentives from any other kind of incentive system.. so in that respect, I can understand the argument being made. I agree that the idea behind implementing these incentive systems is to temporarily create extrinsic motivation in students in the hopes that this will spark intrinsic motivation.
I really enjoyed reading about WEB Dubois' system.. and I wonder how it will pan out in the long run.
After reading this, I wonder how the $1,000 will be allocated, and does it really benefit the students. One thousand dollars among a couple hundred students is not going to go very far. I don't really see the $1,000 as an incentive for the kids, but it is good to see students who are moivated to come to school. I saw something like this last summer in D.C. High school students were paid $7 an hour to attend summer school. I haven' really heard if that improved attendance, but $7 bucks an hour to do something I'm supposed to do anyway isn't such a bad deal.
I am trying to figure out why this makes me so uncomfortable... The idea of paying students money to go to school seems so backward to me. I went to a public school in Baltimore County through 4th grade, then my parents paid a substantial amount of money to send me to a private school for 5th through 12 grade. Knowing that money was being paid to provide me with the opportunity to get my education made it clear that I was receiving a service and that I was being given something worth working for. I am concerned about the messaging that we would be sending to kids by paying kids to come to school. Paying students to come to school seems like a bad idea because I could see a program like this having externalities that negatively impact student mindsets around school and their role as students. I would be very interested to read about the specifics of how these cash incentives would be framed for the kids.
I have so many students who work jobs with long hours after school, which truly prevents them from having the time to do homework and participate in meaningful extracurricular activities. Without the opportunity to have a "whole" high school experience, students have the potential to leave high school without the rich frame of reference that activities after school provide.
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