Cash-For-Tests Program Not Adding Up?

This really sends the wrong message to kids either way. If the point of education is to make money then why wouldn't you just go sell drugs or strip. And frankly the opportunity cost is significantly less, because transforming oneself into a dope boy or stripper takes a lot less effort so you're turning a profit in days not months.

Sent by Shanna Miles | 3:40 PM | 8-21-2008

I have to agree, I'm not sure that I'm crazy about the thought of paying kids to do something they should do just for their own self interest. It just reinforces immediate gratification without showing them the bigger picture.

That being said, depending on how many years they've been doing this, a minimum of two data points is not a way to do a statistical analysis of anything. If anything, they should continue with this questionable proram and see what the long-term results are.

Sent by David P. | 9:01 PM | 8-21-2008

I agree with Shanna and David P. This just sounds like an opportunity for the government to waste even more of your money.

Sent by Bill M | 7:38 AM | 8-22-2008

The problem with the dropping rate on tests is teaching students how to pass a test in the first place.

Instead of teaching and motivating students in the art of acquiring knowledge, we pay them to take tests. The problem with this strategy (as I've seen in my region) is that the kids are so focused with passing a test and all the pressures that come along with such test that they forget the essence of a topic in a given subject.

So if a test question is posed in a different way from the test-taking practice, the student doesn't know the answer.

Now I'm not against incentives (it's the reality of the world we live in) but teachers should be held to a higher honor to walk worthy of their vocation; teach and use test-taking skills as a supplement.

Sent by Moji | 12:11 PM | 8-22-2008

unanimous (so far)...From knowledge is power to knowledge is money? No way to reel in the bling culture, it just feeds it.

This seems like a throw up your hands approach. Have we gotten so desperate that we've run out of ideas and given up trying?

How about other incentives that instill better habits. Like incentives for turning in or completing assignments early (meeting deadlines; addressing procrastination & time management issues.) With so many social options & distractions as teenagers & more importantly once they get to college how about promoting relevant sustainable habits, in addition to the above: Group competitions that invole collaboration, problem solving & team work. The kind of skills one will need in a knowledge economy.

The founders of Apple dropped out of college so pump the brakes on the panic about test scores. With all the research & information like: 7 ways of learning & multiple intelligences we should be asking: are test scores REALLY a good indicator or determinant of anything? Or should test scores be just one factor (and not necessarily the prevailing factor)?

We are way past the time to revisit the sage on a stage model of teaching to test scores & grades. Start considering more immersion style project based learning.

Like: why & how math/science relates to the fact that I can now carry around my ENTIRE music collection in the palm of my hand!

As a youngster who use to sit by the radio with the cassette on pause waiting for a song to record, and hoping the dj would shut up & let it play....I still stare at my Ipod in amazement...this just fascinates me to no end.

Sent by Jon J | 1:32 PM | 8-22-2008

well my my BLACK in my day, our folks just sent us off to school with no thought of test passing or SAT/LSAT oR GRE scores or a monetary uptick [or downtick] incentive. we were told [because they were told] to get an education because this "education" was the key to a better future. Of course, no one ever define whose education nor what it actually was.

Fast forward. i find that a monetary incentive reward/award/payoff to be patronizing and offensive on a whole host of arenas. First, it implies that certain peoples need to be given a monetary "carrot" in order for these to run the ride towards an indoctrination of a eurocentric paradigm of being "educated" and that by its nature means a negation of one's on cultural educational systems and experience. Think of a hamster in a wheel running after a treat of cornuts. Second, the declining state of education has already come to the point of a bunch of test takers for degrees but a lack of academic merit. In other words, with the rising tide of test takers for degrees for jobs, the corresponding trend is a decline in academic learning for learning sake. And with that a decline in critical thinking and writing. And if you do not believe me, perform you own survey. How many folks of what gender are reading books that are non-fiction? How many hours per week are spend on reading contra blogging and internet reading? How many read the Economist cover to cover or the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times and comprehend more than 45 percent of what is being discussed? How many folks have read 3 or more books on a specific Caribbean or African country's history written by an African to comprehend the current news as reported?

I had a woman friend of mine tell me she was first online to get a copy of this five pound Vogue- Black or Noir edition but looked at me with a scorn with I mentioned my New African and Africa Report better read.

Granted everyone has a choice but what really is education. Is it a eurocentric blind acceptance of their values, their culture and their tests? Which gets to diversity. If i study law and pass the us bar and an black or asian or latin and i get picked up by some named law firm, what added value of diversity does my presence bring? I have not studied Chinese law, or Islamic law nor African laws nor East Indian laws not Native Americans law, I only know what i have learned a watered down version of English law having passed a bar examination based on this English law paradigms. Where is the diversity if we have all been taught the same basic eurocentric principles and paradigms?

Diversity as long as the learning and paradigms are eurocentric is a fallacy. And so too is education going in this direction. So, shall you take a test or get in the wheel and run..which do you choice?

Sent by K Mjumbe | 12:26 AM | 8-23-2008

isn't it a well studied effect of the workforce that as employee income increases, money becomes less of a motivator? these children are experiencing the same reaction that most adults in the working world experience when they are have enough money to satiate their basic desires. they care less about making additional money than they place emphasis on other childhood priorities. i think it a very noble program, but much like negative reinforcement, it must be implemented amongst other programs to create the necessary motivation to push the students to the next level.

Sent by Michael Strode | 6:46 AM | 8-23-2008

Nothing 'eurocentric' about math & science, empirical evidence is empirical evidence. Plenty of disciplines that have nothing to do with politics. Thermodynamics is based on principles of science & math, not 'eurocentric' indoctrination. And modern math at it's core is based on Albegra, Arabic (Moor) in origin.

Education is far far more than politics. (And by the way, wasn't Marx European, but i digress.)

Education doesn't have to be through formal channels or organizations. No one if forbidden from proceeding with their own self discovery. Education through formal channels is basically limited to preparing you to participate in the economy, make a living & put a roof over your head.

Beyond that you're free to discover anything you want. You're free to start your own business, not just get a job.

African (Asia, India, etc.) has and still does send it's best & brightest to Europe and the US not to become 'white' but to participate in and contribute to the grander world.

It's ironic; reducing a culturally rich, complexed & diverse continent like Africa, is a reactionary indoctrination in itself...it puts euro (another diverse complexed place) at the center as the point of deviation. To reduce both masses of land down to simply euro and africa IS indoctrination.

Diversity can refer to vegetation, animals, terrain, food, etc...etc.
Reducing to narrow political play is the antithesis of education & discovery not very educated at all, reduced mostly to polemics.

You think if Black kids knew Algebra originated as a Black thing that it would offset the 'acting white' claims? Well, let's try it.

A more educated (and less polemical view) is that when cultures clash what's born is something totally new, neither remains the same, both have influences that get infused. Moorish influence for 900 years....900! Way too much is conceded and/or forgotten with the simplistic 'eurocentric' labels.

Indoctrination indeed!

Sent by Jon J | 2:03 PM | 8-23-2008

@ Jon J-- the problem with black kids and education goes back to the fallacy of Brown v. Board of Education and it is simple. Integration led to the demise of black education. For integration led to a decline in black teachers who cared enough to teach black kids.. White teachers [male or female] dont really care nor do they have the capacity to related to black kids on the whole by the mere fact that they are not in our communities nor do they know how to related to the kids parents. Parents are also at fault for not being rigorous in their children's education. There are the babys who have made babys who still think that if they send their kids off to school, the school will educate them..Wrong!

i have not forgotten that that algebra as it is termed was of islamic and Moors [read: African/Black] origin. just like i have not forgot that the blacks of Kemet were better a architecture and construction mathematics than their neighbors across the Med pond. I think you missed my point which was/is to distinguish testing taking for incentives [in this case, monetary] as a eurocentric paradigm contra learning for learning sake for intellectual curiosity. Integration basically killed that curiosity in a whole host of black kids. The mere factor of having to deal with hatred and the psychological war of just being and still dedicate oneself to concentrate and learn was/is no joke.

I did not knock the underlying disciples of study as much as the marred testing and tracking processes as being "education" and eurocentric in scope. They are not by default "universal"nor broad in scope of encompassing nor representative of all traditions representative of the amalgamation this is termed the "USA".

Also, math and science has nothing to do with you being abled to carry your entire "noize" collection around in the palm of your hand. If you tapped into your eyePod, you should be able to do it without white buds sticking out of your earholes. For i can call up in my head 1920s Louis Armstrong with Bessie Smith, 1940s Louie Jordan, Big Joe Turner and LaVerne Baker, 1950s Ellingston, Strayhorn collection, 1960s Motown/Tamla collections, the Philly sound disciples, 1970s funk and disco [got maggot brain yet?], 1970s-1980s punk/new wave, and in between 1990s African new sound from high life, cape verde morna/coladeria, bataque and a host of 1950-70s jazz traditional [not acid Jazz please] all in me head... calypso, zouk and antilles style, and some reggae. i need only tap into my peoples spirit and pull it up like Manu Dibango "Soul Makossa" before MJJ sample it for "U wanna be starting something". Go listen to the original and did you get his sistah Janet's sampling of Sly Stone as well as the Supremes? Listen to the strings from "If" lifted from Supremes "someday we'll be together." a whole lotta NWA with a twist of 2LiveCrew...and SirMixALotta...LA face with an Oakland...yeah i know...

And, no, aint nothing going to change no matter how much your present example of what the Africans bring to education nor the Chinese nor the East Indians, nor anybody since test taking for advance and grades has made it all passe... is it a, b, c or d fill in the bubble on the scantrom for only one please.

Marx who... Karl or Groucho? are we saying the secret word or crafting the socialism manifesto?

Sent by K MJUMBE | 10:48 PM | 8-25-2008

FIRST, math & science is at the heart of software engineering. SECOND, I prefer listening to my wonderful music collection using my Ipod, thank you. The wonderful things about those buds, mine are actually Black & much superior (that's for you :)...is that they keep me from overhearing annoying conversations while on the train, at a cafe or sitting in the park.

I think you missed my point which was/is to distinguish testing taking for incentives [in this case, monetary] as a eurocentric paradigm contra learning for learning sake for intellectual curiosity.

ACTUALLY I DID MISS THAT POINT. AND THE ONLY POINT OF DEPARTURE IS THE PHRASE 'EUROCENTRIC' IS OVER PLAY HERE. MONEY BEING A KEY TO SURVIVAL...IS LIKE LEARNING ABOUT SEASONS, SOIL, CLIMATE, RAINFALL, OR OTHER CULTURAL ITEMS. ETC..FOR THE PURPOSE OF FARMING WAS CRUCIAL ONE SURVIVAL.

Integration basically killed that curiosity in a whole host of black kids.

I DON'T BELIEVE THAT, INTEGRATION WAS INEVITABLE. INTRA-CULTURAL MORES DEVELOPED THAT MADE INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY LESS VOGUE, LIKE THE STREET BROTHA PROTOTYPE WHO CAME INTO CREATION IN THE LATE 60'S

The mere factor of having to deal with hatred and the psychological war of just being and still dedicate oneself to concentrate and learn was/is no joke.

TOO EASY OF AN OUT, THE SLAVE LEARNED TO READ/WRITE, HAD INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY. BESIDES THE KIDS I SEE ARE CERTAINLY NOT LACKING IN SELF-ESTEEM OR PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE.. JUST NOT FOCUSED.

I did not knock the underlying disciples of study as much as the marred testing and tracking processes as being "education"

TESTING/TRACKING PROCESSES ARE PROBLEMATIC, BUT HEY, THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS HAS TO HAVE QUANTIFIABLE JUSTIFICATIONS.

BUT AGAIN, ONE IS FREE TO EDUCATE THEMSELVES BEYOND THAT...

Sent by Jon J | 4:29 PM | 8-28-2008

If you pay kids for good grades on tests, they won't learn anything at all, the kids will just want the money

Sent by Josh Krasner | 1:35 PM | 9-12-2008