User:Ben-ariel22/sandbox

Summary

This report highlights both ethical and unethical views of paying kids for good grades, while touching on important foundations of ethical economics such as consequentialism, corruption, justice and equality. In this wikipedia report we elaborate on Adam Smith's doctrine and arrive at a conclusion which depicts our perspective on the subject of concern. Based on equality, these incentives would not have been seen as justified or fair as it annihilates the intrinsic value of learning. What are schools teaching children if they keep on paying them to succeed? How government comes about this fund may not be of knowledge to the public. Now, schools are not in charge of whether or not to partake in these in reforms, so they have no reason than to comply with the government. Asides from that, the state is in charge of the countries funds and what do with it, so they use it how they see fit for the nation. With these incentives in play, more alarming situations that may occur would not be attended to leaving things in despair. Justice is not being served if the state can ignore priorities and instead choose to aid other minor and unnecessary expenses.

Introduction

Nowadays, kids of the 21st century have shifted from focusing solely on their academics to putting their time and focus on non-academic activities. It’s hard to say what the fundamental principles of a school entails these days when they only seem to put emphasis on the branding of their image or name. Especially in the case of public schools being made available at very low costs to parents making them believe in the school system doing what is right for their children. Many children are losing interest in their academics in public schools and it’s making the government run out of ideas on how to further improve the educational structure. That being said, the government has introduced financial incentives for students to help revitalize their interest to their academics. Others have raised suspicions on such an initiative from the government which beckons us to look through the eyeglass of consequentialism and ask, is justice and equality being served when we pay kids for good grades or are we simply teaching corruption to the younger generation?

Consequentialism

It is a theory that judges whether something is right by the effects it has on one or two parties involved. According to the University of Texas at Austin,Consequentialism is an ethical theory that judges whether or not something is right by what its consequences are.. Consequentialism has two main examples which are Utilitarianism and Hedonism. From the utilitarian consequentialist view, it is possible to say that an individual is not morally culpable because of certain circumstances like financial problems and bad situations in which they may find themselves in but it also leads to the greater good which measn that all parties benefit from the actions.

Advantages

From an economic standpoint, the students benefit because they are being paid by the schools which improves their financial well-being. Sandel gives us insights to this in his book ‘What Money Can’t Buy’, when he talks about Roland Fryer’s research. Roland Fryer was an economics professor at Harvard who tested this research backed with funding from the foundation which showed that predominantly African American and Hispanic populations of low-income families benefited the most from the $6.3 million that was invested.  In the USA, there was a law passed that was called the ‘No Child Left Behind Act of 2001’ which had the major focus “to close student achievement gaps by providing all children with fair equal and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education” . The US department of education put emphasis on four pillars within the bill which are; accountability, flexibility, research-based education and parent option. The pillar that stands out is flexibility because schools that are allocated funds use them to improve student achievement by offering them financial incentives. From a utilitarian perspective, actions have been taken that have led to maximizing the overall happiness. Students benefit financially, schools gain the recognition they need and parents are also happy because their children are achieving academic success. Therefore, the NCLB has set standards for the state to reach their federal requirement. This involvement however is rather effective because it does not just show flexibility but also how the other pillars function. “This program serves more than 15 million students in nearly all school districts and more than half of all public schools including two-third of the nations elementary schools” . This scaled up the federal role in holding schools accountable for students’ outcomes and if they did not comply they were at the risk of losing federal Title I money. Schools are watched as they are each kept on track in achieving their goal through a mechanism called ‘adequate yearly progress’. They are also required to make sure that all their employees and staff are highly qualified with their proper documentation of state certificates and so on...

Disadvantages

However, it can be seen as an unethical act when we pay students to achieve good grades. Sandel describes the act as bribery because they are used as incentives to motivate the children to do well. According to an article ‘Should we pay kids for good grades’ published by Kelly who is the author says that, “these bribes are often used when the situation is critical, when major things are at stake”. But there are other solutions rather than resulting to bribery such as verbal rewards, or rewarding your child with special treatment because appreciation is always a better option than trying to control. Secondly, Kelly’s article talks about how “Psychological studies that go as early as the 1970’s, have found that these incentives or rewards often result in less engaged students because it shows that student are being trained to do the minimum amount needed to get the rewards. Therefore, they do not develop an intrinsic love of learning that ultimately makes them successful academically” .  Also, the down aspect of paying kids for grades is that it gives them the idea of competition and that’s not what school is about. For example, a child would prefer to read and try to pass their exam just for the sake of passing whereas that child could rather read to understand acquire the knowledge for their own good. Alfie Kohn who is the most outspoken critic of competition in education said “We compete because we are raised that way, not because we are born that way". To elucidate this statement, this can be seen as an ultimatum because we give kids conditions on the things that they need to better their own lives. Let us also take into consideration, the students that are already doing good in school. Does this mean that they beginning to do minimum work required to get the incentive? The answer is no because it doesn’t help in developing the intrinsic love for learning because schools may reduce the learning process.  Another disadvantage that it has is that, it puts more responsibility on the people that pay the money (parents, schools etc) because the students wouldn’t want to learn unless they are given the incentive they are used to. For example, if you give a child $5 for every book they read, if there is no money, the child will not see the point of reading. Alfie Kohns research confirms that “the bigger the reward, the more damages it does by encouraging students to focus on goodies and not the learning” .

Conclusion

Paying Kids for good grades doesn't seem like the best route to improve the benefits to the children. Consequentialism gives us a deeper insight to this view by elaborating on the effects of paying kids for good grades. When looking back on past events like Roland Fryer's project and the no child left behind act of 2001, they both tried to improve the educational structure without altering the market falsely. However, they could only do so much like funding the schools and holding the educators responsible for their failure, but that did not still produce a lot of positive outcome. The children would come to the realization that the incentive may no longer be worth it. Psychologist Carol Dweck believes that parents should reward their children verbally for a start. A reward that acknowledges a great effort is more effective than one that is promised upfront for getting an A. Appreciation motivates children better than control.