<p>Hmm…I’m not sure if I agree with that philosophy or not. While it’s great that the principal wants to increase what the 13% college attendance rate; the idea of a reward is somewhat…repulsive. If we end up rewarding kids all the time, then won’t a reward be expected all the time? Isn’t it also kind of a promotion of materialism, rather than ambition and self-satisfaction? I feel that students should be applying to college on their own will; not because they want to win a laptop. </p>
<p>This is a low-income school, and all the prizes are things that these students will need to help them succeed in college. So I say, YEAH!!! GREAT!!! It takes a lot of little things together to turn around the culture of a school so that academic achievement is respected by peers, and so that college is considered a viable alternative. The principal understands what he is up against, and is taking measures to get accurate data collection of college-going rates by utilizing a raffle w/prizes. Knowledge is power! Kudos to the principal! (that being said, I don’t believe in using extrinsic rewards in teaching usually - but in this case, it seems like a great idea.)</p>
<p>There’s an article in the Metro section of today’s New York Times about a controversial theory that rewarding fourth and seventh graders with cold hard cash if they score above a certain level on standardized tests may be a good incentive. It’s proposed by a young (age 30!!) economics professor at Harvard, who contends that, for a lot of lower-income people, the long-term rewards of Being an Educated Person and Getting a Good Job are too far off and too abstract to motivate some kids.</p>
(that being said, I don’t believe in using extrinsic rewards in teaching usually - but in this case, it seems like a great idea.)</p>