Speakout Columns

Rewards for grades? Give them cell phones

Feb 14, 2008 11:29 AM

By BOB PISANO

You know the feeling you get when you’re so excited you don’t know where to start with a bunch of things you want to say so you can’t even get your thoughts straight and you start to stutter and mumble? That’s how I felt when I read Mayor Bloomberg’s idea of paying school kids cold, hard cash, bucks and even sawbucks or Benjamin Franklins, for doing well on standardized tests.

After working with kids for almost 40 years in New York City I think this mayor has unfortunately decided to pilot a “Price Is Right”/“Deal or No Deal” program and evaluate its effects after two years.

Here are the highlights:

If a student takes a standardized exam, she gets $5 just for sitting down and bubbling in the answers. Achieving a perfect score (whatever that is) on any of 10 exams during the year can net a 7th-grader $50 on each test for a total of $500.

Cash awards for 4th-graders are a bit lower but can add up to hundreds of dollars for good scores on these tests.

The latest idea is to reward high school students with cell phones when they do well in class. I can see it now. The mayor has banned cell phones in school but he gives them out as rewards for good grades or attendance. Student to school official: “Hey, that’s not my personal cell phone. This is the one the mayor gave me for showing up to class.”

Then I read about another payoff for kids in Florida. A school board in the Sunshine State will reward kids who get straight As or have excellent attendance with Happy Meals from a fast food chain. I see, we now tell kids that the reason we learn new ideas and expand our horizons in life is to gobble down chicken nuggets that may lead to obesity and diabetes. By the way, a close examination of the reward sheet with the report card shows that a student with “two or less” absences qualifies for the free burgers. My middle school grammar teacher told us if you can count an item, it takes the word “fewer.” Guess there is no reward for the folks on the school board who printed the reward sheets.

My concerns are more philosophical and practical. Whatever happened to kids getting certificates, gold stars and special pizza parties for good behavior or grades?

Where I taught we used a Character Counts program to recognize students who were courteous, reliable and trustworthy. Teachers filled out cards with the students’ names and we then would draw out lucky students whose Great Adventure trip was paid for with help from school fund-raisers or from support from our PTA.

These were extra incentives but no one had to pay off those who were inclined to do well anyway.

We tried to teach life skills lessons.

I understand that there are some students who need concrete and practical rewards, a carrot to chase to keep them in school and graduate. But can these monetary handouts also be a bit patronizing coming from our billionaire businessman mayor?

I don’t know. One thing I am sure of is that we seem to be telling too many kids today that the only reason to do well in elementary school is to be paid with a cash reward.

I attended a wedding 20 years ago and a young woman in her 20s sitting at our table looked at me and said, “I think you were my English teacher at Tottenville High.” She then opened the small clutch bag that women use at formal affairs and pulled out a small piece of white Styrofoam.

She told me, “Don’t you remember? You asked us to keep these little pieces of packaging as our ‘kids’ and be responsible for them as if they were our children. I still carry her around all these years as a good luck charm but I’ll never forget the lesson about being responsible for someone.”

Now I know this is not the best example to offer about rewarding kids for showing improvement but it should inform us that school is more than getting good grades. It is troubling that we are now entertaining the idea of paying children to do well in school.

Can it devolve into this? “Hey, Mr. Snodgrass, you owe me two bucks since I did my homework last night.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Guidance Counselor, but I have stopped punching and bullying Joey in the locker room and since I have reached my contractual goal, can I now have my $7.50 — in cash, please?”

Or maybe we will hear, “Mr. Horn, at last night’s concert they all clapped after my flute solo. Can I get my $10 by the end of business — I mean — end of school today?”

We do need a business approach to running a big city but education should start and end with this question: As a teacher, is this program, curriculum, lesson or word that I use one that helps or hurts kids?

Call me old-fashioned but I liked the idea of seeing a class list on the side of the room with gold stars glued next to kids’ names.

The kids who didn’t earn all those stars? Don’t worry about them. They are all doing just fine selling cars, running a hot bagels deli or running for Congress.