Yeah, this is a batshit crazy idea. But let's not act too shocked and awed by it. What's a scholarship but a deferred cash payment for an academic job well done? So I don't buy your claim that parents giving kids cash rewards for good report cards teaches the kids "to use people," any more than paying an employee a bonus for a particularly good job teaches the employee to use people. In the job market, such bonuses -- increasingly rare except at the level of CEOs and boards -- tell employees that there's a reward for doing more than what one needs to do to get by.

And by "character education," don't you mean "indoctrination"?

In the end -- note Bloomberg's immediately turn to businesses to cough up the cash incentives -- this is further evidence that the privatization of education is dag nasty. To put a cash value on every part of life is what Marx -- remember him? -- called commodification.

The study referenced here tends to support your point, Erin.

If all kids need is a cash incentive to get them to do better in school, then--it follows--what they need is not a cash incentive but character education.

Given that the vast majority of human beings seem to value cash much more than achievements in academic or intellectual pursuits, this is a non sequitur. In an ideal world perhaps, schools would be successful at changing the characters of their students and teaching them to value education for its own sake. In this world, though, they largely fail at this.

That's why we have to seriously consider imperfect solutions which achieve the lesser goals of having students show up, learning basic reading and writing, and staying off the streets.

this is further evidence that the privatization of education is dag nasty.

Rubbish. Institutional private education in this country antedated the public system by two centuries and millions attend such institutions today to their benefit.

Art, there's a big difference between private education (e.g., Swarthmore or Exeter Academy) and privatized/corporatized education (University of Phoenix). The former is conservative in the classic sense, preserving a space outside of market forces, while the latter is a purely market-driven, commodified system of education.

How can the University of Phoenix be described as "privatized/corporatized"? According to their website, it was founded as a private university in 1976. You make it sound as if someone got control of a state-supported university and 'took it private'. Call it 'private' and 'corporate' all you like, but leave off the '-ized' ending, which is very misleading.

Alastair Macintyre has a nice discussion of this in After Virtue. I can't lay hands on my copy right now, but the discussion supports Fryer. He gives the example of getting a kid to learn to play chess, and a lovely description of the process of moving from playing for external rewards to playing for internal rewards. At first, the kid does not understand why he should invest his time learning to play, so an external reward is appropriate. By the end he would scorn external reward: he is a member of the world of chess players, who play because it's part of who they are.

Linval: What's wrong with market-driven education?

Given the immense ability of non-market-driven education to fail spectacularly and with no feedback mechanism, perhaps some market feedback might be a boon.

Erin: In an ideal world, kids wouldn't need to have a school bribe them to learn.

But we don't live in such a world, overall - many parents seem to have simply failed to inculcate such values in their children.

Schools - at least public ones, who must accept every child, and while every child is forced to attend them - can barely manage to teach the less interested only-there-because-they're-forced children to read, let alone do so voluntarily out of love of learning.

If cash rewards give present-biased children an incentive to learn, well, it's probably better and cheaper overall than having them "graduate" due to social promotion without learning.

Since schools are under immense political pressure to not fail kids who should fail due to inability, this looks like a least-evil alternative to salvage what can be salvaged.

Sigivald, the most urgent problem with market-driven education is that, as with anything else market-driven, excellence will cost too much for poor, working class, and even middle class students.

Then there's the quality issue. Hollywood is market-driven, and this why Hollywood films are mostly terrible. Same goes for television and the music industry. If the classical music scene were market driven, America would have no classical music. We see the same dynamics in everything from book publishing to clothing: what's available and affordable is of dreadful quality.

The point of public education should be to make excellence available to all. Instead, public education is funded so that a "product" of middling quality at best is dumped in the public trough. Every time a conservative complains that throwing money at education won't solve the problem, I like to compare the resources and funding of a place like Exeter or Hill School to a public school. Every time a conservative complains that "progressive" or "constructivist" education is ruining our children's minds, I like to show how top private schools like Exeter have relied on progressive techniques like the Harkness methods for generations.

The Alastair Macintyre story is an interesting one. I'm going to guess that this works if, and only if, the kid is exposed to an existing community of chess players who love the game and manage to communicate that love to him. If his interaction is with a group of chess players who are merely going through the motions, then--no matter how much you pay him--he's unlikely to move to the intrinsic-reward stage.

One advantage of the monetary payments, in the case of the schools, might be the creation of appropriate social pressure. That is, if an entire classroom of kids is being kept from succeeding (and getting paid) because of a few bad actors, then the bad actors are likely to become pretty unpopular. This result could be achieved, though, only if the standards are absolutely objective rather than grading on a curve.

Then there's the quality issue. Hollywood is market-driven, and this why Hollywood films are mostly terrible. Same goes for television and the music industry. If the classical music scene were market driven, America would have no classical music. We see the same dynamics in everything from book publishing to clothing: what's available and affordable is of dreadful quality.

Linval, you can find available and affordable classical and early music recordings at just about any record store. Live performances are part of the philanthropic sector because there are willing philanthropists and because such fare is seldom commercially viable. That is not a problem with markets, but with the evolution of consumer taste. (I note also there are specialty cinemas in most cities, some of which are commercial concerns, and which show more cerebral entertainments).

The point of public education should be to make excellence available to all. Instead, public education is funded so that a "product" of middling quality at best is dumped in the public trough. Every time a conservative complains that throwing money at education won't solve the problem, I like to compare the resources and funding of a place like Exeter or Hill School to a public school. Every time a conservative complains that "progressive" or "constructivist" education is ruining our children's minds, I like to show how top private schools like Exeter have relied on progressive techniques like the Harkness methods for generations.

It is a daunting task to generate a definition of 'excellence' that absolute and is not derived from the observable performance of human populations past and present.

Only in Lake Woebegone are all the children above average.

Art, you've missed my point about market-driven music. Sure, you can find affordable classical recordings. But new recordings by major orchestras and performance groups are generally supported in part by philanthropic and national/state/local funding. Bottom line is that there would be no classical music *scene* in a purely market-driven music culture: old recordings would be available, but new groups, soloists, recordings, and performances would be verboten. The scene would die, and classical music would become a strictly museum phenomenon.

The same is true for art cinema, which often survives on the basis of private and public grants, not on supply and demand. And a few big city art theaters is not a sign of a healthy economic player.

About education: every child might not ultimately be "above average," but I don't think we have any way of knowing in advance which children will in the end be above average students. So I think our job as educators must be to teach every child as if s/he is capable of always improving his or her academic performance. Children at Exeter aren't necessarily above average before they arrive there. What they are is rich.

Worth taking into consideration so that this exchange does not get over-simplified: Elite schools such as Exeter have been making huge shifts in their financial aid packages so that students' economic backgrounds do not prevent them from attending. They are modelling themselves after the moves made by schools such as Harvard and Princeton and are consciously working to open their doors to a more diverse range of students. See: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/04/18/costly_boarding_schools_offer_more_aid/

Linval: Given a voucher system, which is the sort of "market driven" education that's most plausible in the US, how does excellence end up costing too much for poor kids?

The market forces schools to compete on performance (ie, ability to educate, so long as we assume parents value that).

Economic theory and practice tell us this will increase performance all-around, not just for the top end.

(And re. Hollywood and music... your tastes are not the same as "excellence".

Hollywood's market driver is entertainment, not "what makes film critics or professional aesthetes happy" and it fulfills that role very well. Same with popular music.

Unless the market force behind education is something beyond educating, I see no reason why competition should produce another result.

Given competition for people's money, a market system will process the information they provide (willingness to pay for one product over another) and maximize ability to satisfy the desires that they'll exchange money for.

As long as parents (or whoever's paying the bill) prefer better education to worse, that's what the market will drive. Given the choice, in the experimental education "markets" we have, many/most parents do seem to actually value education, often being willing to pay extra for it out of their own pockets.

Why your dislike of mass culture products should lead you to believe a market in education can't work is beyond me.)

Unusual wealth or idealism aside, money is already the principal driver of educational achievement -- only more in the long-run. College attendance has increased as much as it has in the past 50 years because Americans suddenly became more enamored of wisdom.

If most of what we're doing in urban poverty schools is to provide kids second chance at the advantages that parents of the management and professional class bestow upon their kids nights and weekends, then this plan completely suits: if mom can't articulate what doing well in school is for, than $50 from the Board of Education can do just as well.