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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (347231)	8/17/2007 12:44:53 PM
From: goldworldnet	Respond to of 1575396

Our opinion on education incentives: Cash for grades? An odd idea whose time may have come. Fri Aug 17, 12:22 AM ET Prepare yourself to express moral outrage: When some students go back to school this year, they will get paid for improving their attendance, grades or test scores. At first glance, even second glance, this seems like a terrible idea. Motives to learn should be pure and intrinsic. And if learning for the sake of learning doesn't click, the correlation between education and income ought to be sufficient motivation. Won't paying for grades inevitably lead to kids demanding money for, say, taking out the garbage? Perhaps. But a careful look at the new pay plans suggests that in the right circumstances, they're not so crazy after all. For one thing, the experiments are financed with private — not taxpayer — money. For another, the schools where these programs are about to unfold are located in minority neighborhoods where 90% of the kids live in poverty and test scores lag far behind, such as New York's South Bronx. Lots of middle- and upper-income parents reward their kids for getting good grades with cash or a trip to a favorite restaurant. Those same kids also can find around them ample evidence that education pays. Their older siblings, cousins or neighbors head off to college and land good jobs. In the poorest neighborhoods, kids see more destructive role models, and their parents lack the financial means to reward effort in school. Seen that way, offering cash for improved test scores is an attempt to replicate incentives proven to work in wealthier areas. For the students, the cash rewards represent something more than just money. At Amphitheater High School in Tucson, where most of the students are poor and Hispanic, some students shed tears when they learned they had been selected to be part of a cash-for-grades experiment, says superintendent Vicki Balentine. It was the first time they had received a message that the outside world actually cared how they did. At the moment, only a handful of places are trying cash-for-performance. The largest experiment, involving 70 schools in New York City's poorest neighborhoods, starts next month. Fourth-graders who score perfectly on state exams will get $25; lower scores earn less. The cash rewards double for seventh-graders. How the programs are structured will be as important as the monetary rewards. For one thing, they should focus on more than just showing up. The Tucson experiment requires perfect attendance to win $25 a week, but it also requires C-averages or better and no discipline referrals. Students making the honor roll at the end of the semester can earn $100 bonuses. Both the New York and Tucson programs have control groups of students not receiving cash rewards. Tracking both groups will show whether the experiments have short-term and long-term benefits. And in neighborhoods where students can get rolled for lunch money, it's important to try to ensure that the rewards stay safely with those who are earning them. New York and Tucson school officials have lined up banks willing to place direct deposits into accounts for the students. Bank officials will visit the schools to teach financial literacy. Yes, it's sad that education has come to this. But with the right controls and safeguards, paying for grades, crazy as it may seem, is an idea that's worth trying. news.yahoo.com * * *

To: Road Walker who wrote (347231)	8/17/2007 1:58:54 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575396

JF, > BTW, speaking of fat asses and politics... do you believe that most of the "upperclass" are Republicans and the "underclass" are Democrats? Could've fooled me. NYC, D.C. metro, SF, Seattle, Portland, and L.A. are all centers of Democrat wealth and opulence. How come the richest states in the union are the "blue" ones? Tenchusatsu

To: Road Walker who wrote (347231)	8/17/2007 3:58:14 PM
From: Joe NYC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575396

John, So why is everyone getting fat? McDonalds? TV? Computers? You are the obesity expert so you must know. Main reason is the misguided Food Pyramid, that came from government bureaucrats, and is drilled to population as a healthy diet. The beraucrats want people to stuff themseles with grain and grain derived products. The food industry loves that because they can buy dirt cheap commodity grains, add their adidives, salt, sugar, hydrogenated oils, flavorings, and sell this dirt cheap garbage at premium. Environmentalist love that too, because feeding masses of people, if you barely want them to survive (but not necessarily be healthy and prosper) grains are the most efficient way to achieve it. Unfortunately, human digestive system has taken 10s of thousands of years to develop, and does not readily respond to latest trends in political correctness. BTW, speaking of fat asses and politics... do you believe that most of the "upperclass" are Republicans and the "underclass" are Democrats? How does that correlate with education and party affiliation? What is Rush Limbaugh's demographic? The very bottom of the society in whatever category you pick are heavily Democrat. Let's say (WAG) bottom 20%. The rest of the income groups are spread more evenly. But if the overall split is 50/50 and nearly 20% of the Democrats are at the bottom, the higher income groups are more Republican than Democrat. Joe