Pay kids to attend school?
NEWS FACT:Students with perfect attendance in California's Temecula Valley School District can win iPods, DVD players, and even a trip to Disneyland. In Hartford, Connecticut, Fernando Vazquez, 9, is $10,000 richer because he didn't miss a single day of class last year.
Across the country, schools are rewarding students for perfect and improved attendance. Prizes range from free meals at Applebee's to $10,000 in cash.
Incentive (reward) programs have motivated kids to go to school. In Fort Worth, Texas, attendance increased by about 200 students per day in the 2004-2005 school year after an incentive program was implemented. That translated to about $940,000 more in state funds.
Although such programs may work, Jeff Bostic, director of school psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, takes issue with the approach. "It's against our grain to suggest that you have to cajole, seduce, or trick students in order to get them to learn."
What do you think? Should kids be paid to attend school?
Yes The Chicago School District will spend $500,000 on incentive programs this year. If attendance goes up by I percent, the district will receive an extra $18 million in state funding. Christian Soils, 14, thinks that students will also benefit from the program: "It influences kids to go to school instead of staying at home," says the eighth-grader at Darwin Elementary School in Chicago. "Whatever way possible to get kids in school is fine by me."
Nicole Salamone, 12, a seventh-grader at Allendale Columbia School in Rochester, New York, says that students should be paid to learn: "I don't see why the teachers get paid for going to work and kids don't get paid for going to school. It is our job to go to school."
No If young people are paid to study, what kind of values does that teach them? "Paying students to go to school spoils children," says Carmen Caraballo, 14, an eighth-grader at Darwin Elementary School. "Kids must learn to do things for themselves and not just because there is money involved."
Ashley Gonzales, 13, an eighth-grader at De Anza Middle School in Ontario, California, agrees. "Students don't deserve to get paid to go to school because they are lucky enough to learn many incredible things," she says.
Jenna Price, 13, a seventh-grader at Allendale Columbia, raises another concern: "If someone is sick, they'll come to school anyway for the money and get others sick."
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| Publication: | Junior Scholastic |
|---|---|
| Geographic Code: | 1USA |
| Date: | Mar 27, 2006 |
| Words: | 404 |
| Previous Article: | Return of the mummies. |
| Next Article: | She's number one! |
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