Comments on: Show ‘em the money! – Trialing conditional cash transfers in schools

By: Oportunidades Knocks? « Andrew Leigh

Oportunidades Knocks? « Andrew Leigh — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 05:24:50 +0000

[...] Update:

By: Daily Femmostroppo Reader - March 12, 2009 (2nd edition) — Hoyden About Town

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:48:37 +0000

[...] Show em the money! – Trailing conditional cash transfers in schools [...]

By: Don Arthur

Don Arthur — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:17:33 +0000

James – My understanding is that Opportunity NYC components are trialing both rewards for improvement and rewards for proficiency.

The Family Rewards component pays parents of elementary and middle school students when their children achieve proficiency or improvement. High school students can earn a payment if they achieve a passing grade in the Regents exam.

I think Roland Fryer’s Spark component pays for performance rather than improvement.

By: James Farrell

James Farrell — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:28:30 +0000

I assume the rewards are for absolute scores in the tests rather than imnprovement. In that case, the scheme is likely to reward ability as much as effort (and parhaps more so in fourth grade). Kids from the better resourced of the households that qualify will tend to bring more skills to the test, and get more than their share of the rewards. So it would be good if rewards were based on improvement from one score to the next. Only, that would create an incentive to do bomb out in the first test.

In general, I have a gut reaction against material incentives for children. But I suppose that’s a culturally specific, romantic prejudice. Many if not most of the asian kids in my son’s Year 6 class last year were promised $500-$1000 if they got into selective schools.