Don't Pay for Grades

I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I find it somewhat appalling that several states are paying for grades. I'm talking cold cash and prizes.

A high school in Macon, Georgia, you get a flat screen TV for making honor roll. Over in Atlanta, you get paid to attend tutoring sessions. In Baltimore, Maryland, they're planning to give $110 per student for improving the statewide graduation test average. In New York City, 9000 4th and and 7th graders can win up to $500 for improving English and Math tests. Back in September, seven states won spots in ExxonMobil's grand experiment that pays a kid $100 for each passing grade on Advanced Placement exams. In Dallas, they've been doing the same thing for a while at 10 schools.

It's the difference between the Western extrinsic reward mentality and the Eastern intrinsic motivation mindset. Want to know the long-term effect?

Combined research from the Employee Involvement Association and Japan Human Relations Association reveals that the average number of ideas submitted per employee annually is 100 times greater in Japanese companies than in U.S. companies. Why? We reward the wrong thing in the wrong way. The average reward in Japanese companies is 100 times less (about $5...usually just a recognition for contribution) than the average U.S. reward of nearly $500. Average per idea savings/gain in a Japanese company: $3500. Average in a US company: $350. We have it backwards, and it's a net loss! The bottom line is that the Western business practice of rewarding only accepted ideas has all but killed the creative drive of corporate America. THAT's the long-term effect. (Don't believe it? Check out the difference in performance between GM and Toyota, who implements over 1 million ideas a year).

This from THE ELEGANT SOLUTION, continuing the thought:

"The situation brings to mind a favorite parable:

An old woman lived alone on a street where boys played noisily every afternoon. One day, the din became too much, and she called the boys into her house. She told them she liked to listen to them play, but her hearing was failing and she could no longer hear their games. She asked them to come around each day and play noisily in front of her house. If they did, she would give them each a quarter. The youngsters raced back the following day, and they made a tremendous racket playing happily in front of the house. The old woman paid and asked them to return the next day. Again they played and made noise, and again she paid them for it. But this time she gave each boy only 20 cents, explaining that she was running out of money. On the following day, they got only 15 cents each. Furthermore, the old woman told them she would have to reduce the fee to a nickel on the fourth day. The boys then became angry and said they would not be back. It was not worth the effort, they said, to play for only a nickel a day.

The fable should ring a familiar bell. The old woman’s scheme effectively stole from the boys the very thing they loved most to do, what they were in fact doing for free. The moral of the story is pretty clear. If we’re not careful, we can replace a natural motivation with a synthetic one. We can rob creative power from people by attaching a financial reward to ideas.

The story repeats itself all the time. Companies treat employees like a rat in a maze after cheese, by paying for approved ideas and accepted suggestions. They then wonder why they get such low participation. They give no thought to the notion that in order to get a good idea, you need a lot of ideas.

Teachers are notorious for the practice. They want students to read more books, so they reward the completion of books. Maybe with a homework exemption. Or extra credit. Or even vouchers to the local Taco Bell. So the quick and easy books get read. The superficial books get read. Even the good readers, the ones who love to read, get swept up in the program. They stop reading the classics, turning to the quick reads to score points. Then the program is discontinued, and everyone stops reading. Even the best readers lose their love of words. And that’s a true shame."

They start in Kindergarten. My 5-yr old is told to keep a tally sheet for books read to her...it's all about how many tally marks she gets. Love of the bedtime story gets replaced by the goal of tally marks!!

So I tore up the sheet. And tore the teach a new (expletive deleted).

Comments

[Michael Sporer]

You nailed it, Matt...........

[John Hunter]

Exactly right. Alfie Kohn has good material on this including Punished by Rewards - http://curiouscat.com/management/alfie.cfm.