Kansas City schools turn to cash to keep students motivated

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Students across the country are getting more than a pat on the back for scoring well on tests or attending school this summer. They're earning gift certificates, pizza parties and even prepaid credit cards.

As pressure grows to improve test scores, schools in places like Kansas City and Buffalo, N.Y., say they're successfully using such incentives. Critics, however, call them a poor use of public money at a time when many states are struggling to fund education.

And school, they say, shouldn't be thought of as a place to make a buck.

"In a sense, there's something sad about having to bribe kids to pay attention to a boring test," said Monty Neill, executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing in Cambridge, Mass. "That shouldn't be what school is about."

Evidence of incentives' success is mixed. A pair of experiments conducted in the 1990s at the University of California-Los Angeles examined whether cash rewards could entice students to score better on tests.

Eighth-graders paid $1 for each correct answer scored slightly higher than students who were not paid; the money made no difference for 12th-graders.

In the second study, researchers looked again at 12th-graders, but upped the ante to $10 for each correct answer. Again, there was no difference between the paid and unpaid group, said Harold O'Neil, one of the researchers and an education professor at the University of Southern California.

But districts, including Kansas City's, have started offering incentives to students just for showing up. That's particularly common in Missouri summer school programs, because the districts themselves receive a financial incentive from the state for holding summertime sessions.

Struggle for attendance

Before the incentives were added, the Kansas City district struggled to get students to attend regularly.

"They'd come for a day or two, or week, and then they'd drop out," said Sugar Lee Lewis, the district's director of summer school and admissions.

Daily attendance has improved under the incentives program, and more than 14,000 students are enrolled in summer school this year, up from about 9,400 last year. In 2001, when no incentives for attendance were offered, just 6,000 students enrolled in summer school.

"In some cases, it has raised some eyebrows because some parents think it improper that you have to provide incentives to get kids to go to school," said Jim Morris, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

"But even so," he said, "it seems to be flourishing."

Last year, about 55 districts in the state contracted with Newton Learning, a division of the for-profit school management company Edison Schools Inc., to operate summer programs. In 1999, the company began offering incentives -- including bicycles, video games, stereos and gift certificates -- to students participating in summer school programs.

"It's very simple," said Adam Tucker, a spokesman for Edison. "Kids can't learn unless they are in school."

Newton, which also operates summer school programs in California, plans to expand into other states in coming years.

At Buffalo's Burgard Vocational High School, students who participate in a three-year-old program that focuses on academics and includes an intensive look at the automotive industry receive $5.15 an hour to attend class during the summer. They are also given a stipend of about $45 a month for attending an after-school program that meets three days a week during the regular school year.

John Suchy, the program's coordinator, said participants have a higher overall attendance rate and score about 6 percentage points higher academically than classmates who aren't involved.

Kansas City's district plans to spend $750,000 on prepaid Visa cards this summer for attendance rewards. Students who don't miss a day will get a card worth $125; those who miss only two get a $50 card.

Courtney Fields and classmate Che'Myra Fields, who aren't related, already have plans for their cards.

The soon-to-be sixth graders at Southeast K-8 Zoo Academy are planning vacations: Courtney, 11, envisions a trip to Mississippi to see her cousins, while Che'Myra, 10, wants to visit Chicago. Clothes, games and candy are also on their shopping list.

The district has also added an incentive program worth nearly $380,000 to reward schools whose students perform well on state tests. Under the plan, any of the district's 66 schools could give students direct incentives -- such as tickets to movies, amusement parks or sporting events. Schools also could stage such events as school-wide picnics.

District spokesman Edwin Birch acknowledged the incentive effort has its critics. But, he said, "How do you reach those kids who don't see the value of an education because they are dealing with other things in their lives?"