Yes, teachers should be motivated by "Do your job to a minimum standard or be fired." I think kids would be really motivated by the chance to earn 15-20k a year.
A legion of motivated kids would also help root out bad teachers. Right now, kids probably like a lazy teacher - less work for them. If your payout, as a student, is based on standardized tests - you're probably going to be upset with a teacher who isn't teaching you much.
There would be corruption and cheating to balance against - but I think it's possible to strike a balance that's much better than our current system.
I’ve made a similar argument, paying students/ their families for good grades would be a huge incentive. A big aspect of cultures that seem to perform very well regardless of incomes is their focus on the importance of education, and the necessity of studying. If you tell kids you get $5k if you get an A on the state math exam, the entire family, community, school will be pushing those kids to do better on it to get the money.
> If you tell kids you get $5k if you get an A on the state math exam, the entire family, community, school will be pushing those kids to do better on it to get the money.
And punishing them if they fail.
And punishing /their teachers/ if they fail.
Do you really want to raise the stakes on something that's already stressful enough for a huge portion of the population? "If you don't get a B or better, your little brother won't get to eat" doesn't lead to disciplined focus for many people...
It depends if you want to educate kids well or not. Our current model says it's not that important to educate kids - that's why, despite tripling spending in inflation adjusted terms on per student spending since the 1970's test scores on national assessment tests have been flat. That's flat as in no improvement the last fifty years despite 3x the spending - infinitesimal gain pre-covid that was wiped out by COVID.
In our current model people care about getting more money and benefits to district administrators, union officials, and companies that provide education services, but people obviously don't care about educating students well.
I think that yes, like you describe, offering substantial amounts of money would produce substantial motivation. Better, it would produce motivation exactly where needed. The poorly family in generational poverty knows they can get 20k a year if their kid studies well. The poor family pressures their kids into studying a lot and doing well in school. Yes, that's hard on the kids but the consequences are that they're well educated and their families get needed support.
By contrast, the idea that we shouldn't pay students because their families might pressure them into doing well is a false kindness. You would make school a little easier but doom the children to generational poverty all so the bureaucracy consuming our exorbitant education budget can continue to be rich.
If the parent is abusing their child that is going to happen regardless, and the possibility of an unlikely event being loosely tied to a policy shouldn'
t stop a policy that may actually help.
A legion of motivated kids would also help root out bad teachers. Right now, kids probably like a lazy teacher - less work for them. If your payout, as a student, is based on standardized tests - you're probably going to be upset with a teacher who isn't teaching you much.
There would be corruption and cheating to balance against - but I think it's possible to strike a balance that's much better than our current system.