Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Thesis
Thesis
Luke Gregory
Professor Thomas
UWRT 1103-005
18 April 2018
After the first draft I wrote I was completely and utterly lost, but at the small group
meeting, I actually realized what I was supposed to do. I am a visual learner and by
seeing other people’s work really helped me understand how to do this thesis. Thank
you Mrs. Thomas for giving me more ideas to explore and not to just stick with one, and
also thanks for the story about Hendrick. I have never had any confidence in my writing,
Have your parents ever given you money or rewarded you for getting good
grades on your report card? If so, did the incentives push you harder to get good grades
just for the rewards? Or did you actually retain the information you learned? There are
several different opinions about the topic, and most of them go back to the concept of
parenting. If you had a child in school, would you give them rewards for getting good
grades? Paying a student or receiving incentives for getting good grades has not been
proven to be the number 1 answer to rise student achievements across the nation, but it
can be a stepping stone to get to the answer. Many scholars have opinions regarding
the incentives and many different studies have been conducted that have shown
different results. By relating students receiving incentives to even adults getting raises
can help shed some light on the consequences and benefits of rewarding students.
Some people say that giving students incentives helps to benefit their grades, while
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others disagree and believe that it builds bad habits and beliefs.
I personally have first have first hand experience with this concept of rewarding
people for performing a task correctly and efficiently. My dad is a manager for ATT in
my hometown and he has about thirty or so people under him, and when I asked him if
he rewards his employees he responded in a way I honestly did not expect. He said that
he used to give out a lot of rewards years ago, such as extra vacation days or even
money prizes, but now he rarely gives them out. A few years ago, 12 people retired at
once so ATT had to hire new workers fast, so they hired a group of young guys from my
hometown. It was a whole new experience for my dad, he stated to me, “my new
workers honestly believe that the world revolves around them, so when I gave a certain
employee a reward for doing his job very well, the others were expecting the same
reward.” Since then, my dad and the entire company as a whole, has fired countless
workers because of their poor work ethic and lack of dedication. This showed me a
potential negative of rewarding people, that people will expect a reward of some sort
after every task done, and they will lose their work ethic, because they want everything
handed to them instead of working for it. My dad recently has been told to be very
selective in picking who receives a bonus, and also to look at the more strenuous and
Performance Bonuses and Merit Raises Don’t Work”, talks about a study done by Willis
depth of the negatives of receiving bonuses with data from Senior Managers of 150
different companies. Fisher states that “the traditional annual raise has become so
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ingrained in U.S. companies that every employee over age 30 has ‘grown up’ with it and
expects it” (Fisher). This quote shows the pitfalls of the newer generation of workers,
they expect to be rewarded just because other people do. The article also mentions how
the managers of some companies deal with the unhappy employees who do not receive
raises. The study by Willis Tower Watson found that 26 percent of the companies in the
study paid out raises to employees who did not reach the minimum requirement and a
fifth believe that raises indeed help an employee's work ethic and drive up performance.
Not to mention that the study also found that less incentives are being handed out, also
that managers are being told to leave some salaries the same and give raises to more
important and critical areas of the company. This study perfectly explains what my dad
is going through with the new generation of workers getting jobs. It makes sense now
that he comes home from work on some days very stressed and just wants to sleep.
Although, I definitely understand the coming home and wanting to sleep part.
That brings up the question, is paying students really a bad thing? According to
Beth Kobliner from the Huffington Post it can go either way. In her article titled “Should
You Pay for an ‘A’? Part 3: The Experts Weigh In”, she quotes a study done by Roland
Fryer, who graduated Penn State with a PhD in economics and is a economics
schools from five major US cities. The study found out that the average GPA of a 9th
grader in New York increased only by a tenth and their state test scores did not improve
as well. That brings up a new question, do the students “know” how to learn? Fryer
asked New York students how they were going to improve their test scores and they
answered by reading the questions more carefully, taking their time on the test, and re-
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reading their answer choices. Nothing about studying more, or reading the textbook
again, or even asking their teacher for help. This statement shows that the students
were only trying to improve for the paycheck they would receive, but even when trying
to just receive the money, their scores did not improve. This can possibly bring up a
whole other topic about the teachers in these underperforming schools. Students must
first be taught the correct way to perform in school and that comes from the teachers
(Kobliner). You may ask, is there anything in the study that legitimately worked? In the
same study as before, Fryer found that “paying for specific habits” has positive results.
He found that paying a student for reading a book or even mastering different math
concepts works to bring up test scores. In Houston he paid students and parents for
every weekly math objective was mastered. Although it was only 2 dollars per objective
the idea worked. Fryer witnessed the students master 125 percent more objectives than
students who were not paid to do so. And when he raised the price to six dollars,
average of six per week. Fryer also paid the teacher and parents for every parent
teacher conference taken place during the study and the number of conferences rose
87 percent. By not just focusing on the students, by spreading the range of the study to
Has there been a clear answer recently that shows if giving students incentives
works? In October, 2017 Education Week posted an article written by Arianna Prothero
organization that has covered k-12 since 1981. This fascination with trying to find ways
to improve students grades started with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and many
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experts have been trying to find another solution other than the act. In the article,
Prothero gives many experts’ own sayings about the issue. Lucrecia Santibañez, an
says that, “This is something that every incentive paper starts with: the research is
mixed,” as quoted by Prothero, and also that good planning and design can be the
deciding factor of a study about incentives. I agree because, there are so many opinions
and different results from studies, but there is no real clear answer. It mostly boils down
to the parenting of the student and the teaching habits of the teacher. An associate
programs that have positive outcomes on the students are the ones that rewards things
that they feel like they can control. Otherwise explained as rewarding the inputs instead
of the outputs. Livingston also states that “students don’t necessarily know how to
improve their test scores, so even if they’re motivated to try harder, that doesn’t mean
they can actually do better” (Prothero). By first establishing a firm learning foundation,
such as good study habits, reading books about the topic, or even doing practice tests,
and then rewarding those efforts, Livingston states, tends to have a higher success rate
in a study. What do the schools do with the incentives or the money they receive from
these studies? Some schools don’t simply pay students for their grades, they give out
fun and more special incentives. Just a few to mention are a school system in central
Missouri gives out a hundred dollars if a student has perfect attendance at the summer
school program there. This helps with “leveling out the playing field” from
Tennessee gives out Memphis Grizzlies tickets out to the kids that have good
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attendance throughout the school year. What do you want so badly as a sixteen year
old? Raytown School district in Kansas City gave away two cars to students who were
put in a raffle for having good attendance. The superintendent of the school system
Allan Markley states in an interview, “The key to making incentives work is getting inside
your students’ heads and figuring out what they really want, A lot of kids are working to
support their family, a lot of them are homeless. What can we do to entice kids to come
to school? They are dealing with a lot and coming to school may not be their number
this as well, but it is only done by one school. They target the underprivileged students
that get good grades at the end of the year and then they are entered into a drawing to
win a new car. By not just handing out cold hard cash to students, but rather prizes that
make memories instead of filling the bank account. While asking my professor for help
on this paper, she told me a story that one of her friends passed down to her. At
Hendrick Motorsports, a NASCAR competitor, gives out similar prizes to the three
school systems. She informed me that some prizes include getting to take home a
convertible car home for the weekend and enjoying having that luxury. By tapping into
the minds of the employees, the management team has to assume that the people
working there most likely enjoy cars, so why not give them a car they don’t have for a
weekend. These types of rewards can be more beneficial than paying people to do
something.
TIME magazine put out an article written by Amanda Ripley that outlines another
study conducted by Roland Fryer (yes once again) and in this particular study, Fryer
paid out 6.3 million dollars to 18,000 different students in 4 major cities in the US for
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different achievements such as paying students for their grades to even not getting into
fights at school. In the city that was focused on paying students for getting good grades,
Fryer found that the students did significantly better on their standardized tests at the
end of the year and he even said, “it was as if those kids had spent three extra months
in school, compared with their peers who did not get paid” (Ripley). These students
were paid year round under the program so they had constant rewards coming
in. Select people who reviewed his study agreed that it seems that paying students has
a positive impact on their academic achievements. Ripley then says something that
really resonated with me, “money is not enough (it never is), but for some kids, it may
be part of the solution, in the end, we all want our children to grow into self-motivated
adults, is it possible that at least for some kids, the road is paved not with stickers but
with $20 bills” (Ripley). This quote is very meaningful because, it tells us that students
are all different. While the study shows the results, Fryer agrees that “kids should learn
for the love of learning, but they're not, so what shall we do” (Ripley). Fryer is a front
runner of this whole argument with rewarding students and he also has some real world
experience. And due to that, he runs an Education Lab at Harvard with a budget of
about six million dollars a year and is always looking for a solution to fix the education
An outline of the Study:In four cities, 18,000 kids earned a total of $6.3 million to do the right thing. Some incentives
DALLAS
HOW MUCH
$2 per book
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reading-comprehension scores
CHICAGO
HOW MUCH: $50 for A's, $35 for B's, $20 for C's
STUDY SIZE*
RESULTS: MIXED Kids cut fewer classes and got slightly better grades. Standardized-test scores did not change
WASHINGTON
RESULTS: POSITIVE Rewarding five different actions, including attendance and behavior, seemed to improve
reading skills
RESULTS: NO EFFECT Paying kids for higher test scores did not lead to more learning or better grades--or any
was surprising to me. I conducted the survey in class on March 21, 2017 using Google
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Drive. One of the questions I asked them was “have you ever been pad by your parents
for getting good grades” and it was a complete fifty fifty split. That was shocking to me
because, myself and a vast majority of my friends were paid for getting good grades on
our report cards. I came from a little above average middle class home with two working
parents, but I never expected anything in return of me getting good grades. Looking
back at my childhood years I can see just a little glimpse of the only working for the
money viewpoint. The next question I asked them was, “do you think it is necessary for
kids to receive incentives for receiving good grades and why.” I was waiting to hear
back from this question so I can see all of their viewpoints and some of them were very
thoughtful. One of my classmates said “up to a point, I think when kids are younger,
they might need that extra incentive to get good grades, but when they are older, they
should be able to understand the importance of good grades without getting a tangible
reward.” This was a great response and a few others were very similar. This response
helped to reinforce what other expert’s also said. At a certain point in someone’s life,
they will have to learn to take care of themselves and not rely on others to always be
there to help. My classmates are gonna be some tough parents because over 80
percent said they are not going to pay or reward their children in the future.
There is so much more information and studies to conduct about how to properly
fix America’s education problem. Paying and giving students incentives can possibly be
the fix everyone has been looking for but only time will tell. I am very curious as to what
is going to happen to all of the programs that are all over the country that are promoting
higher test scores for a reward. Will kids retain the knowledge they will eventually learn
and has this recent idea ruined the future workers of America? There are so many
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different findings that there are no certain answers if they work or not. Society needs to
change the view that everyone gets some kind of reward out of their heads. I believe
that the whole situation of kids underperforming starts at home. If you have supportive
parents that always push you to be your best, but not being too overbearing, then you
have a better chance of doing better in school than another kid whose parents don’t
look into their school work. All a person needs is just some motivation in life to boost
their self confidence. Everyone deserves an equal chance in life and I hope to see
America rise up in the education standings in the world in my lifetime. I could see myself
Works Cited
Fisher, Anne. “Why Performance Bonuses and Merit Raises Don't Work.” Why Performance
fortune.com/2016/02/24/salary-bonuses-merit-raises-effectiveness/.
GreatSchools Staff | October 30, 2017 Print article. “Cash for Good Grades? Some Schools
Give It a Try.” Cash for Good Grades? Some Schools Give It a Try, Greatschools.org,
Kobliner, Beth. “Should You Pay for an 'A'? Part 3: The Experts Weigh In.” Should You Pay for
www.huffingtonpost.com/beth-kobliner/paying-for-grades_b_1975557.html.
Prothero, Arianna. “Does Paying Kids to Do Well in School Actually Work?” Does Paying Kids
www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/does-paying-kids-to-do-well.html?qs=paying for
grades.
Ripley, Amanda. “Is Cash The Answer?(The Well; Cover; Education; Paying Kids)(Paying
Students Cash for Being Good at School)(Cover Story).” Time, vol. 175, no. 15,
2010, p. 40.