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Paying money to students for their good grades
Paying students for good grades
Paying students for good grades
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Did you know that schools in some places are actually giving kids money for good grades? If schools wish students to be self-motivated and have a desire for learning because it’s valuable to them, then schools should not pay students for excellent grades. Paying students for good grades can lead to kids having pressure to earn good grades. In addition, the students who are payed will not succeed academically in the long run. Also, they are not self-motivated so when they are not getting paid they will stop trying. From pressuring to get good grades, not succeeding academically in the long run, and not having self-motivation, there are several negative effects of paying students for marvelous grades.
To begin, with, school should not pay students for good grades because they are constrained to earn good grades. Evidence from the NEA article claims, “Many teachers also say paying students for grades leads to practical problems in their classroom, including pressure to inflate grades.” This leads to kids trying to get good grades, which can cause stress because if they have one dreadful grade, they will worry a lot about not getting as much money. The effect of this is students will be distressed about grades that they won’t have any fun and won’t rest their brains. Clearly, students are pressured to earn good grades if they are getting
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Which is said by Stanford Dornbush, director of the Stanford Center for Youth Development, “Students who receive money for grades will in the long run have lower academic performances.” If students receive money for grades they will not succeed in the long run because they are only motivated because of money. The effect of this is teaching kids to only accomplish stuff for money, which can cause them to become greedy. Obviously, students will not succeed in the long run academically if they are galvanized by
The author argues that by focusing on the economic benefit, educators risk distracting students from the importance of the academic process itself. However, students of different socioeconomic backgrounds have different motivational factors. A study conducted by Stanford University in 2015 researched this particular topic. Five hundred-seventy students from different universities, ethnicities, and financial backgrounds were asked what motivates them to do well in school? Based on their results, low-income students were highly motivated by the
According to student reporter Joseph Maneen, “Studies have shown that rewards can motivate students to attend school and that the more kids are in school, the more they learn” (“Cash Courses” 1). Teachers cover topics more in-depth than a school textbook does, so for a student to understand what the teachers are teaching they must be present in the classroom. Some may say that being rewarded with money doesn’t help improve our success in subjects we don’t like, but student Katelyn Vlastaris says, “‘If you reward us with money, it may motivate us to do great in subjects we don’t like, and then we’ll start doing well by ourselves’” (“Cashing In”). Once a student gets involved in a subject they are unsure about, they start to learn about it and understand it better, and the students will continue to grow in that subject area.
In “What is a Grade” by Pat Belanoff, she explains the pros and cons of the grading system. In Pats ' essay she states “Perhaps the solution would to abandon grading altogether in writing class. I confess that this a solution that appeals to me greatly.” (151). Grades should not be present in the way we test students’ learning ability. School seems to be more about learning the material for a brief moment just to get a good grade rather then to actually learn and think about the information being presented.
Let’s start by first examining the letter system currently used for evaluating or grading students. Letter grades, A through F, are assigned based on a combination of associated and non-associated assessments of skills. “A” being excellent or good, “B” meaning better than average, and F meaning poor. These letter grades take into account many non-academic elements such as behavior, participation, extra credit, and even attendance. A teacher can put anything they wish into a students’ grade. We are taught, at a very early age, both by educators and by parents, that if we are an “A” student or we get “good grades” we are “good people” or if we earn “bad grades”, we are “bad” or inferior to others. Thinking back to my childhood, going to school each and every day, not because I wanted to or because I enjoyed it, but because I had to. I can remember just trying to get through with anything better than an “F”. Anything better than an “F” meant I was doing okay and was going to go to the next grade, eventua...
Can you imagine having a job for nine months out of the year that makes you work from 8:15 AM until 3:30 PM on every weekday and not getting paid for all of your hard, tedious work? To most of you that sounds ridiculous. That’s because it is. Students have to go through this painful process from September to May and usually don’t have anything to show for it. They dedicate their whole lives to getting all A’s on their report card and when they finally do all they usually get is a pat on the back. Thus, students should get paid for having good grades because it takes lots of hard work to get those grades, it would cause more students to strive for good grades, and it would eliminate the need for a job, which would allow for more studying time.
Throughout the lives of individuals, everyone imagines the dream job or the job that is going to make the most money. Most of these jobs need to make it so a higher education like college is needed to be able to even make it in the field. College is not by any means cheap, depending on what college is chosen, yes it can be less money but it is still thousands of dollars by the time the degree is earned. Many people that want to go to college cannot afford it, therefore cannot reach the dream job. In order to make college accessible to those who are truly deserving, incentive programs such as offering financial stipends which can be earned through academic success in high school need to be offered.
Some people believe merit pay creates competition and favoritism. They seem to think school systems will pay some teachers more than others and create a “battle” for money. In Merit Pay: Good for Teachers? By Gary Drevitch, one interviewee states, “I know it’s worked in some places, but I shudder at the idea of teachers being in competition with each other.” None of these problems will occur if school districts implement a successful, unbiased system. Another issue society presents when it comes to merit pay comprises of differentiating a “good” teacher from a “bad” teacher. School districts can easily evaluate a teacher’s ability to educate students by the work teachers put into helping students. Student’s reactions to a teacher’s class can also help evaluate teachers. More often than not, students will love a class where the teacher clearly demonstrates lessons, explain procedures, and adds elements of fun. On the other hand, students typically dislike classes where the teacher only comes in for a paycheck. This attitude is displayed by their lackadaisical teaching style. Other people argue that money should not be the reason why people go into teaching. Richard Barbieri, author of Merit Pay? argues that money is not an external motivator, but the substance of a teacher’s motivation. Financial incentives will cause employees to work harder
The Consequences of Grade Inflation When students arrive at university, professors expect them to understand the material to an exceptional standard. The problem is that grade inflation is occurring more regularly in secondary schools and universities across the country and when these students’ marks are sent to universities or colleges, the student may be given multiple scholarships for something that he/she should not have earned. Grade inflation is conceived between both students and teachers, meaning that the students are given higher grades when they have inadequate learning, reading, and verbal skills, while the teachers do not have to grade as many papers as they should in the real curriculum. There have been multiple examinations that have confirmed that grade inflation is very real and still occurs today. Students seem to think that they do not need to put forth much effort in school to do well, and grade inflation encourages this thought.
However, such accusations such as laziness and entitlement, although common, have been prevalent amongst those of college age as proven in “A’s for Everyone.” Shepard had investigated the cause behind this and had put the blame on grade inflation in the years prior to entering college, the pressure to get superb grades due to high tuition costs, and most importantly the belief that “effort” constitutes a grade bonus. However, if one has entered the school system in America, one could see the relative ease in which one could improve their grades through inordinate amounts of extra credit. Multiple students have heard and even seen fellow students ask their parents to even come in for meetings of which equate to blaming their child’s poor grades on the teacher and harassing said teacher to allow their child, soon to be a hardworking, productive citizen of society, to get the “grade they
The expectations and standards for kids in America are too low. The low expectations of students are encouraging them to slack off or not give their education their best efforts. Many states are making tests and curricula easier so it looks like their students are performing really well, when in reality they are just being given easy material (“Bursting bubbles; Education…”). After school activities are another factor in low academic performance. While jobs and sports provide many benefits, school is the number one priority for kids. Not enough emphasis is put on this by teachers and parents (“Shortchanging students: How…”). Parents are contributing to the low expectations by not paying enough attention to how their kids are doing in school, also. Parents should be rewarding children for achievements and punishing them for failures instead of ignoring what is happening in their child’s life. If kids know that they won’t be punished or rewarded then they won’t try their hardest, because they know it doesn’t matter. Students have reported that they think grades aren’t important, they don’t try their hardest, or are afraid of what their friends migh...
Grade inflation is a problem because it gives students a false sense of their ability to perform. For a student's future, grade inflation means not having to put in the same amount of effort to achieve the grade they would want from high school and college. Grade inflation can be seen as a negative thing; it increased during the Vietnam War, when students became consumers in colleges, creates an easy path for advanced students, and can negatively affect the younger generation. A possible solution would be to slowly decrease the grade inflation, maybe so minimalist that it isn't clearly noticed.
This in turn will cause the students to have a harder time learning because instead of the teachers teaching what the students need to be taught and more time teaching what the people who don’t know what the students know think the students should be taught. One example of this is, if a student already knows how to write a narrative but the standardized curriculum requires them to teach how to write a narrative it would be a big waste of time having to cover it that deeply if the students had already learned it. If those people would not have stepped in then the teacher could have moved faster and taught the students something they actually needed to be taught, such as how to write a argumentative essay (Paying teachers for student test scores damages schools and undermines learning) (Does Merit Pay For Teachers Have Merit? Pros And Cons Of New Models For Teacher Compensation). In the 2011-2012 school year (the year when they tried implementing performance/merit pay in idaho and many other states) the sat scores actually went down very slightly, or did not change at all --the score did not go up like the it was supposed to (Idaho ED
In conclusion, students should be paid to do well in school because it has many benefits to the student. Those benefits include motivation to get good grades, the money would help the student financially, and the student would learn how to manage their money more effectively. School is a big part of every person’s life, so it should be more rewarding to the
My cooperating teacher set up a “mini-economy” system in her classroom. Each student has a job in the classroom such as teacher’s assistant, door holder, or police officer. The students get paid weekly according to their job, but they also have to pay the teacher weekly for utilities and taxes. Additionally, if the student wins a game or behaves well, he or she receives classroom money, but when a student misbehaves that individual owes the teacher money. This is a good system because it teaches the student simple concepts like salary, taxes, and bills. It also provides the teacher with a consistent way to discipline students since, for example, talking is the hallway always costs $10. I could see myself implementing a modified version of this. I love the idea of giving students jobs in the classroom so they take better ownership of it, and I like that it keeps discipline more consistent and objective. However, I do not like that this system teaches the kids to value and work for more and more money. I believe our society already has a problem of overvaluing money so I do not want to perpetuate that view in my classroom. I may still use this same system, but use tickets or points instead of
A statement from the Huffington Post states, “From a very young age, we are told the importance of getting good grades. Especially in high school, we are told time and time again that our grades affect what college we will get into. While grades are extremely important, people often forget about the importance of learning, not just getting good grades. There is a difference between the grade received in a course and the amount of learning that took place in the course.” Parents and institutions should teach the importance of learning. The society around the upbringing of students emphasizes getting good grades as apposed to getting every detail and aspect mastered. School priorities should be reevaluated and changed for future students