How To Obtain Good Grades

In today’s failing school system something has to be done to improve student performance and motivation. One method that has great potential for doing this is paying students for good performance and grades. It will give the students incentive to do better, it will teach students to work harder to achieve these good grades, and it will teach the students that there are rewards for making good choices in life. Other people believe that if you bribe or motivate kids with money for good grades then that kid will automatically expect rewards for everything that he or she does. Diane Ravitch argues that students in India, Korea, and Japan spend thousands of dollars and attend after school classes to boost their chances for college admission (1). She points out that money being spent in Los Angeles, New York City, Washington D.C, and Chicago to pay students for performance would be better spent in efforts to reduce class size (Ravitch 1). Michele Borba, an educational psychologist, states, “Most of the research says it doesn’t work. It has short-term gain but long-term pain” (Flam 1). Others believe that kids should learn because they want to learn not because they want to get paid for good grades.

Kids are lacking the drive to do well in school and get good grades in their classes. A recent experiment in Washington D.C showed that kids with serious behavioral problems made significant improvements when offered money for good grades and performance (Turque 1). A kid won’t change his or her entire attitude on school just because his parents gave him a lecture on how important school and good grades are. Money may be a tool parents and educators should consider to motivate students with behavioral