The evidence, as always, is mixed. Yesterday, the New York Times noted that the Big Apple's dollars-for-high-test-scores program hasn't worked. Today, I receive in my inbox notification from the Hoover Institution??that another, similar program "that rewards both teachers and students for each passing score earned on an Advanced Placement (AP) exam has been shown to increase the percentage of high ACT and SAT scores earned by participating students, and increase the number of students enrolling in college...."
Our wonderful research director Amber will no doubt cringe when she reads that I am largely unconcerned with what that which she nominally directs says on this point. The government should not institute programs that pay students in return for good grades, no matter what the research finds (and I promise you, it won't conclusively find anything... but that's a whole other post). Regardless whether you??think the??concept screwy, as I do, or whether you??believe it's a scrumptious idea, it remains indisputable that a school that rewards monetarily those 11-year-olds who ace their spelling??exams is??undertaking a controversial??action--one in many ways tangential to the school's fundamental purposes (a strong argument holds that??paying kids in fact??undermines those purposes)--over which reasonable people??certainly will??have reasonable ethical disagreements.??Why the government inserts itself into such situations is beyond me.
Furthermore, is it not telling that the education reform community has suctioned itself to yet another money-driven supposed fix? The reason, of course, is??no constituency opposes more money, whether it's for teachers or students or schools or district central offices or whatever. On the other hand, strong constituencies oppose commonsense reforms such as such as evaluating teachers' skills and paying the best of them more, stiffening academic standards, creating rigorous exit exams and demanding that students who want a high school diploma actually pass them, breaking down the education school monopoly by encouraging high-quality alternative certification, etc.
Rather than concentrate on those battles and fight them vigorously, it seems to me, many would rather ignore them??and instead quibble over whether $100 is enough to bribe adolescents to study.
Update: Just noticed this, from the Wall Street Journal. Subtitle saaaaays... "So Far, Results Are Mixed."