Does Money for Grades = Motivation to Learn??

Students from class 732 of the Pulitzer School were asked whether Mayor Bloomberg and the Department of Education’s idea to pay students for good grades and attendance is a good idea or not. Here is what they had to say:

No

Giving kids money to do will in school and doing their work wouldn’t help them because the only reason they will come to school is for money. I think bribing the kids to come to school for money is good and bad. The good reason is because the kids will come to school and do their work. But the bad reason is because all the kids are doing their work for money and they will only do their work for that money. - Brittany Robinson.

The problem in this situation is that teachers want to pay the students that do well in school. The teachers are willing to pay $120 to students who have perfect attendance and that do well on their state exams. If people start doing this, there will be a lot of violence because gangsters will start jumping the geeks that have the money. So, instead of money they should give privileges. –Arielis Mangual

I think that kids should not be paid to go to school, because education is important for kids to learn. They need it in their life…If you pay a kid to go to school, they would go to school just for the money. Also they would not learn anything. Some would take the money in the morning and leave. –Matthew Carvajal

Yes

I think that students should be payed to do better in school and to focus in their work.If the department of education payed students to go to school and do their work and study and get good grades students will never be bad.There would be no kids inside inhouse, in fact there would be no such thing as inhouse.If students got paid to go to school and be very good, the only punishment that would exist would be getting half of your money taken away by the department of education.I really think that students will do better in school if they got paid. -Carlos Lloret

I think that kids being paid to go to school is a great idea because you are getting money for going to school every day and for getting a good education. I think that sounds like a deal that if you come to school you’ll get paid for it… - Jennyfer Hernandez

I think we should get paid because we are doing a good job. We’re getting good grades and [the money] is helping us because we get more into our job. – Mitzy Bravo

A different solution

My reaction to the Education Department is that we don’t have to love learning, but we should learn. A possible solution is to make learning fun. And this would work because children like fun stuff. The way you can make it fun is by playing mini-games that teach you how to do the subject you are learning. Also by not being too strict. This is better than paying [students] because we can still behave bad and we won’t learn because the only reason we’re coming to school is because of the money. – Mariano Arzayus