District Students to be Paid on Commission

By Broadside Correspondent Jared Trice

For decades, the Washington, D.C. public school system has resisted change. Any efforts to reform the school system were done so in a bureaucratic fashion, funneling money into programs and initiatives only to reap disappointing results.

With the school system’s reputation of having one of the nation’s highest operating-cost yet lowest-performance system in respect to achievement and infrastructure, newly appointed school Chancellor Michelle Rhee will be experimenting with some new student incentives.

Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and Rhee will be partnering with the Harvard University American Inequity Lab in the 2008/09 academic school year in a sweeping attempt to reform the system. The D.C. public school system will be paying students for attendance, behavior, homework completion and grades.

Beginning in October, students in 14 middle schools throughout the District will be eligible to receive up to $100 a month. Students may receive up to 50 points per month with each point equivalent to $2. Qualifying students will receive debit cards distributed by the school; money will be deposited into a bank account, which the school will establish.

The program, dubbed Capital Gains, was created by economist Ronald Fryer of Harvard University’s American Inequity Lab, which studies the consequences of inequality in American society. Capital Gains will cost approximately 2.7 million dollars and will be jointly funded by taxpayers and Harvard University.

In 2007, the D.C. Council granted Mayor Fenty near-total control over the D.C. school system in an attempt to restructure. Fenty believes the school system has spent a huge amount on a school bureaucracy that has failed the students. Fenty believes, instead, that money should be directed to the students themselves.

“We believe this is a time for radical intervention and we are very excited about this particular program,” said Rhee at a conference outside of Hardy Middle School.
Rhee feels that targeting sixth through eighth graders will be more beneficial because this time is typically a pivotal stage in a student’s academic career.

Rhee’s reform does not come without its challengers. Although parents may choose not to participate in the program, many feel that offering tangible rewards will undermine intrinsic incentive. A study published by Edward Deci, professor of Psychology and Gowen Professor in the Social Sciences at the University of Rochester found that offering students extrinsic rewards, such as payments could diminish a student’s motivation for the activity.

Results will be published in October, measuring the success of Fryer’s incentive program in the New York City public school system.