Stop Smoking, Get Paid

Social engineers sometimes refer to it as "contingency management." Public health agency case managers in San Francisco offer vouchers for goods and services to formerly meth-abusing HIV patients if tests show they continue not to use drugs for 12 weeks. Their behavior is modified for a time. Then? Back to unincented struggle. Likewise, Reuters reported yesterday: university researchers find that offering prizes valued at up to $100 helps former meth addicts and other drug users stay clean during a 12-week clinical test. A public school in San Francisco gives prizes such as bicycles and toys to students for good school attendance. The idea being people wouldn't necessarily do what's right if left to their own devices, so why not bribe them with prizes? Today, we learn that more and more school districts are getting into the act, even giving away shiny new vehicles for showing up regularly, though there's no strong evidence it makes much difference.

(AP) Casper, Wyoming -- Sixteen-year-old Kaytie Christopherson was getting ready to do her homework on a Friday when she got a call that made a big improvement in her life: She had won a brand-new pickup truck for near-perfect school attendance. And not just any truck, but a $28,000 Chevrolet Colorado crew cab, in red, with an MP3 player....Public schools commonly reward excellent attendance with movie tickets, gas vouchers and iPods. But some diligent students like Kaytie are now hitting the ultimate teenage jackpot for going to school: They have won cars or trucks. School districts in Hartford, Conn.; Pueblo, Colo.; South Lake Tahoe, Calif.; and Wickenburg and Yuma, Ariz., are also giving away vehicles this school year.

..does bribing students with the possibility of winning a car or truck actually get them to think twice about staying home from school? Some educators think so, and say their giveaways have boosted attendance. But the evidence is not clear-cut. Jack Stafford, associate principal at South Tahoe High School, said attendance increased slightly last year, the first year the school system gave away a car, and is up slightly so far this year. He said changing times call for such incentives. "My mom had the three-B rule: There'd better be blood, bone or barf, or I was going to school," Stafford said. But "that's not the case now."

And there's the road not taken by AP in this report. Exactly why is it parents are lax about school truancy? They certainly get notification of unexcused absences. It must be that many don't care. Given that cars for kids makes just a small dent in attendance at best, maybe the schools sucked into moral arbitration this way ought to package it as a "two-fer" deal; a pickup truck for the kid, and a sporty red coupe for the parents.

In fact, the possibilities for fully-developed case management are rather arresting. Consider. Certainly some kids get away with truancy due to drug-abusing parents. Combination "contingency management" therapy might then be indicated. Cars for the kid and parent if junior's school attendance warrants; plus additional prizes for meth-head mom or dad if they test clean for, say, 12 weeks.

Wait. There's more.

Brown University is paying students not to smoke.

TECHNORATI TAGS: PRIZES, SCHOOL ATTENDANCE, CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT, CASPER, WYOMING, SAN FRANCISCO, METH, HIV, BROWN UNIVERSITY, CIGARETTES, SMOKING

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 30, 2006 12:42 PM

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