From: dermer@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Marshall Dermer)
Newsgroups: uwm.general,milw.general
Subject: Re: MPS PLAN HIRES THE WRONG WORKERS
Date: 11 Jan 1993 16:21:15 GMT
Organization: Computing Services Division, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Distribution: milw
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.7.30

In article <1iplreINNl0h@uwm.edu> dermer@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Marshall Dermer) writes:
>
>
>                       MPS Plan Hires the Wrong Workers
>

    The previous posting was a copy of a 600-word "In My Opinion" which I
    recently submitted to the _Milwaukee Journal_.  Space limitations
    precluded my addressing the usual concerns about pay-for-learning.
    
    Several readers have kindly written to me about their concerns. Below I
    list and discuss such concerns.  (It would be better, however, if
    concerns were posted on this conference rather then sending mail
    directly to me.  Discussing the MPS building program or pay-for-learning
    here may help our thinking about these important issues.)

    I have been told that pay will not enhance learning.  I refer critics
    to Beth Sulzer-Azaroff and G. Roy Mayer's Achieving Educational
    Excellence (1986, Holt, Rinehart and Winston) which reviews much of the
    literature showing that pay for learning works.

    I have been told that pay will encourage children to expect instant
    gratification.  Although it is true that pay would be fairly immediate
    in the lower grades, the time interval between work and pay would be
    gradually delayed as children progressed through school.  By high
    school, students would be paid for learning at the end of each month.
    In this way, pay for learning can foster self-discipline.
  
    I have been told that pay will undermine intrinsic interest. Yes,
    social psychologists have found evidence for this, particularly when
    children are promised and given rewards merely for engaging in a task
    regardless of the quantity or quality of the work. When children,
    however, are promised and receive rewards for superior work interest is
    sustained or enhanced when rewards are terminated.

    I have been told that paying children for learning is bribery. Bribery,
    however, involves a powerful person inducing another to behave in ways
    that violate the latter's self-interest. Paying children to learn is
    not bribery when children will want meaningful, well-paying work as
    adults.

    I have been told that children should learn without pay.  At one time,
    of course, the vast majority of children learned without obvious
    extrinsic rewards when learning was supported in other ways. These
    supports included having a loving family or neighbors who enjoyed
    learning, who bestowed personal admiration for learning, who tutored
    children to enhance learning, or who were successful by virtue of
    learning.  Today, more children enter our public schools with less of
    these precious resources.

    By the way, many people who deplore paying children for learning are
    quite proud to talk of their children winning college scholarships or
    graduate or professional-school fellowships.  When I note that they are
    bragging about their children being paid for learning, they respond
    that these honors were based on merit.  But what determined that merit?
    Substantial portions of meritorious behavior are determined by social
    conditions that are not available to inner-city children.

    I have been told that children should learn for the love of learning.
    Some 700 years ago, Rabbi Moses Maimonides proposed his own
    pay-for-learning system.  He was told then that children should study
    Torah because it is the word of God whom they should love. In turn he
    asked, how are the many adults who obey Scripture because of its promise
    of reward unlike children who read because of figs? To be sure
    Maimonides deplored the use of rewards to motivate learning but he saw
    no other way of bringing children or non-believers to study Torah.

    I have been told that pay for learning will foster materialism.  The
    amount of money to effectively motivate learning, however, is small.  
    For example, one dollar daily per eighth grader may be sufficient.  
    Moreover, money can motivate learning non-materialistic lessons
    concerned with, for example, friendship, charity, or the rewards
    intrinsic to a contemplative life.

    I have been told that many children will spend their earnings on drugs
    or that children will be "shaken down." Children who experiment with
    drugs, however, will discover that drugs interfere with learning and
    reduce earnings. These reductions ought to deter many such students
    from continued experimentation. But the lure of drugs or other rewards
    will tempt some students to access money through guile, theft, or
    extortion. Many of the social inventions that help adults such as
    direct bank deposits can help children.  Furthermore, we should
    recognize that realistic learning objectives will permit the vast
    majority of children to legitimately earn rewards. Nevertheless, these
    are difficult problems which are neither unique to inner-city schools
    nor have stopped adults from being paid for their labor!