Some students need to be "incented" with prizes to go to school; apparently learning reading, writing, math, science, history, social studies, art, music, computer programming, Web design and foreign languages isn't quite enough, in and of itself. The New York Times reported Saturday on this growing phenomenon. Chelsea (Mass.) High School:

....decided to give students...a little extra motivation: students would get $25 for every quarter they had perfect attendance and another $25 if they managed perfect attendance all year....Chelsea High is not the only school trying to improve attendance with incentives for students. Across the country, schools have begun to offer cars, iPods — even a month's rent. Some of the prizes are paid for by local businesses or donors; others come out of school budgets. In Hartford last year, 9-year-old Fernando Vazquez won a raffle for students with perfect attendance and was given the choice of a new Saturn Ion or $10,000. (His parents chose the money.) At Oldham County High School in Buckner, Ky., Krystal Brooks, 19, won a canary yellow Ford Mustang. In Temecula, Calif., the school district prizes can include iPods, DVD players and a trip to Disneyland. Many schools have been galvanized by the federal No Child Left Behind law, which factors attendance into its evaluations. And schools, especially in poor districts, are motivated by money from state governments, which is often based on average daily attendance.

At Malcolm X Elementary School in a low-income San Francisco neighborhood, kids with strong attendance records get bracelets, jewelry-making kits, even bicycles. But some critics think the approach is all wrong. More from the SF Chron:

Alfie Kohn is an education expert and author of "Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes." He believes administrators and teachers in struggling schools tend to rely on prizes to turn around students' performance because it's so much easier than creating an atmosphere in which children want to show up and do well.

"How can we nourish kids' natural curiosity and desire to learn? What does it say about homework that children dread doing it and rarely find it of value?" Kohn said. "You know, to answer those questions, to make school meaningful for students, takes time and talent and courage. But you don't need any of those things to toss kids a doggie biscuit when they jump through our hoops."

Robert Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, a nonprofit that opposes the strict standardized testing requirements under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, said the incentives stem from the testing craze. Schools are under increasing pressure to produce good test scores and risk closure if they fail. In such a high-stakes atmosphere, administrators will try anything, even bribing children, to avoid that fate, Schaeffer said....."Many of the kids are coming to school way behind with many hurdles to overcome, and carrot-and-sticks is not sufficient to address their real issues or to motivate them to learn," he said.

Churches are even getting into the act. Seeking new members, Abundant Life Christian Center in La Marque, Texas has already given away a Chrysler PT Cruiser, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, a three-bedroom house. And yesterday, newcomers were expected at the church as part of a $150,000 Super Bowl Sunday throw-the-football-through-the-tire contest.

Some social workers and public health researchers are trying to help drug addicts quit, by using material rewards as an incentive. The approach, likely to be tested in additional studies in the next few years - including an experiment here in Seattle - is called "contingency management." The L.A. Times reported late last year that the San Francisco Public Health Department is paying up to $40 a week to gay and bi-sexual men who've been addicted to methamphetamine, if they continue to test clean.

The San Francisco program began in November, 2004, and is intended to help cut meth-fueled, unprotected gay sex and HIV transmission, as well as meth addiction. The testing, and possible rewards, last for 12 weeks. No word on what happens to the subjects over the longer term. And there's the rub, isn't it? For students who need to attend school everyday, as well. What happens when the prizes run out? Where does the motivation come from then?

The greatest prizes in life are those that are understood by the individual to be their own reward: such as knowledge, analytical capabilities and marketable skills from education; or inner peace and munificence toward your fellow man from the religion or Qi Gong regimen of your choice. As for kicking an addiction, if you can't summon up from within the will to live better and longer, well, a little bit of pocket change for a few months isn't going to make much difference in the end. All our leading cultural indicators emphasize the opposite message, but in fact, the quick fix is no solution.

TECHNORATI TAGS: INCENTIVES, PRIZES, SCHOOL ATTENDANCE, CHURCH ATTENDANCE, DRUG ADDICTION, CESSATION

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at February 6, 2006 09:30 PM

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