December 14, 2007

Cash Rewards for Good AP Scores Pay Off, Study Finds

A study of several high schools in low-income areas of Texas has found that offering students cash rewards for earning good scores on Advanced Placement tests appears to have benefits extending well beyond the AP program.

The study, by C. Kirabo Jackson, an assistant professor of economics at Cornell University, examined the effects of a voluntary program, aimed at low-income and predominantly minority school districts, that offers teachers financial incentives to successfully teach AP courses, and students cash incentives to post solid scores on the tests. Run by AP Strategies, a Dallas-based nonprofit group, the Advanced Placement Incentive Program was first tried in 10 Dallas schools in 1996 to promote college readiness. Now it is in place in more than 40 schools throughout the state. A similar approach has been adopted at schools in New Mexico, and other states and school districts are moving to follow suit.

The cash incentives that the Texas program offers juniors and seniors are fairly modest, ranging from $100 to $500 for AP scores of 3 or higher. Nonetheless, Mr. Jackson found that at schools that adopted the program, not only were more students taking AP courses and scoring well on the tests, but students were showing more readiness for college in other ways. The number of students scoring about 1100 on the verbal and math sections of the SAT, or above 24 on the ACT, rose by 30 percent, and the number of students going on to college rose by 8 percent.

Mr. Jackson could not pin down exactly why the program had brought about broader improvements in student achievement, and could not rule out the possibility that schools were hiring better teachers as they adopted the program. But given the high costs borne by colleges to provide remediation to unprepared students, as well as the long-term financial payoffs of a college education, he said, the cash rewards that the program distributes to students “may have high social returns.” —Peter Schmidt

Comments

1. The report would be a lot more valuable if they had also studied instances where the teacher received cash rewards but the students did not, and where the students received cash rewards but the teachers did not. But maybe the education establishment was just angling for results showing that throwing lots of money at the problem is the way to go.

   — J. Ward    Dec 14, 11:47 AM    #

2. Reading this article, at first I cringed at the idea of paying students to learn! But even if students start out working harder b/c of the money, it may show many of them that they are capable of succeeding academically in general and thus capable of succeeding in college.

   I would like to know how much money the teachers are receiving. I think that teachers’ salaries should be higher, but this sounds kind of like working with a salary plus commission.

   — CE    Dec 14, 03:53 PM    #

3. I think that the program definitely has merit. Even though it appears that students are “bribed,” I think that they are just being given an alternative form of motivation. Perhaps they never received monetary gifts for hard work academically at home & this was the first time that they had been rewarded for excellence.

   I remember when I was a sophomore in English class and my teacher encouraged us to read the twenty books of suggested reading in the back of the text. I don’t think that she thought any of us would but, when she mentioned a prize, I was motivated to do so.

   I think that, for so many students, the value of an education does not resonate because many underpriveleged youths do not see college as an option and, therefore, do not apply themselves. Programs like this could have a compound effect in that it could motivate students to excel in their classes thereby ultimately preparing them for collegiate opportunities. Now, if we could only make certain that these young students have access to the same textbooks and technological benefits, maybe we might begin to send more African-American men, for example, to college, rather than prison.

   — L. Poole    Dec 14, 04:24 PM    #

4. I wonder how many students were just taught the test instead of the entire subject. If there is enough money in the pot, there will be cheating!

   — Joe Bone    Dec 15, 07:34 AM    #

Previous: 2 Students Killed in 'Home Invasion' at Louisiana State U.
Next: California Rejects Stem-Cell Applications Over Conflicts of Interest