[Dixie Yooper]

Wednesday, my 8 year old son brought a note home from his teacher. She admitted to making a mistake with him on Monday which started by her asking him why he was not keeping up with the day's writing assignment. When he told her he wasn't feeling well, she felt sorry for him and wrote down what was up on the board for him so he would have it for home study. Once she did that, he was feeling much better and was fine the rest of the day. Tuesday and Wednesday, he tried to do the same thing, but she didn't fall for it. Since receiving her note, My boy's homework has been lasting as long as it takes to get everything done that he doesn't get finished at school (10:30 last night). This weekend will be spent on speed writing exercises and math flash cards. I agree that teachers need to be more that just task masters, but parents have to make sure their children are keeping up with the rest of the class by enforcing good homework and study habits as well as keeping a positive line of communication with the teachers on their progress at school.

[dfwgator]

All this will do is make teachers find ways to give students “A’s” whether deserved or not. They don’t want to deny somebody money, especially in the inner-city schools, they could be threatened if they don’t give out the A. Bad, bad idea IMHO.

[ZULU]

Students DO get paid for good grades.

The pay is called a good job.

[Grut]

Why not? How many of us would be motivated to work for 'experience' alone? Pay now for work now is the rule we live by, even if the work doesn't bear fruit until later.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

ping

[Amelia]

Public Education Ping

This list is for intelligent discussion of articles and issues related to public education (including charter schools) from the preschool to university level. Items more appropriately placed on the “Naughty Teacher” list, “Another reason to Homeschool” list, or of a general public-school-bashing nature will not be pinged. If you would like to be on or off this list, please freepmail Amelia, Gabz, Shag377, or SoftballMominVa

[metmom]

So what if they get an A? It doesn’t mean they earned it.

I can see extortion and blackmail and threats against teachers who don’t co-operate.

[metmom]

ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL

This ping list is for the “other” articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. The main Homeschool Ping List handles the homeschool-specific articles. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping list. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from either list, or both.

[Citizen Blade]

I remember asking my dad why he rarely congratulated me for getting good grades in school. He told me that he didn’t believe in congratulating people for doing what they were supposed to do in the first place.

I can see the wisdom in that- seems like a lot of parents make a huge deal when their kids do the most mundane things correctly.

[mysterio]

My parents told me in high school my job was to get good grades. They provided me with access to a family car, and I produced good grades, which got me a full tuition scholarship.

It was a very effective motivator to keep my nose in the books. And the academic scholarship was significant enough that I was scared to death to lose it, so I studied my bum off in college. Same with my grad school assistantship.

[hunter112]

When I got custody of my thirteen year old son, his stepmother and I came up with an elaborate way of getting him back on track, and this included withholding and granting of privileges for grades. It worked, we got this kid from having to have gone to summer school to pass from the 7th to the 8th grade at his mother's home, to being accepted to both state universities by the time we were done with him.

But I believe that such payment-deprivation plans should be carried out only by the parents of the kids. Any money that somebody thinks they want to spend on this should be diverted towards making parents more engaged with their kids' school work.

[Tired of Taxes]

Such a plan is too open for abuse by teachers, students, administrators, politicians... There are too many courses that are graded subjectively. For example, students could be graded more on what political beliefs they hold, with higher grades going to students who share the same beliefs as the teacher.