Money vs. Education Value

Money vs. True Value of Education

As a child growing up doing well in school was never an option. The only this I had to do was go to school and make good grades. Now that I think about it school was my job and my paycheck was the knowledge I was gaining. This generation now-a-days have the idea that they should be rewarded finically for doing well. Students should not offered finical incentives to do well on standardize test in school.
Schools should not give into to paying students for their performance. It is understood that in order to keep a school in good academic standings you have to make sure students do well on the standardized test. The test scores not only reflect the school but also represent each student as an individual. So you can see why it is important for students to do well but should that really mean at all cost. For many years teachers have been teaching the material for the long term knowledge now it seems as if they are just beginning to teach just for testing.
There are some major disadvantages when trying to offer students financial incentives to do well on standardized test. Education should be viewed as a privilege. Many students take educations for granted. Not knowing that in some countries education is still not free let along for all males and females. You even have some certain types of schools here in the USA that you have to pay for high school education. I would think since students know that one day you will have to pay to further your education that they would take advantage of the free opportunity now. Not only is the education free but it is almost certain that at some point of another you the material that one is learning will resurface there will be the few exceptions and you will have the students who have a passion to learn and will need no further incentives to do well in school. Below is chart that shows the cost of college tuition and other few that one occurs when going off to college to further ones education. College by far is not cheap by any means this is why students should take advantage of the free schooling while they can. Not only is the education they are receiving is free but the information they are learning is sort of a prerequisite to what they will need to know before going to college.

Education is power. No real progress in life can be made without some type of education. If we begin paying students to so well what will they really being learning. Students will not be learning to retain knowledge but learning in order to pass a test. They will not fully me learning in a way it would just be memorizing the material. Once it’s down on the paper most of the time the knowledge of the material is gone. It is like the saying “information is going in one ear and out the other”. The high school years should be the time that a student’s brain should be like a sponge, and soak up all the information that they can. Not only can you just think about the good outcome of the present you have to think about the future effects. Let’s just say that we do start paying the students to do well on standardize testing in high school. Then what happens when it’s time for the student to graduate and go off to college. Many students may not be read for the next step in high education since it was only required to do well on the standardized testing. We don’t even have to go as far as to say college how about two or three weeks form the time of testing. There will be some students who will not be able to recall the information that they learned to receive a good grade on the test but surly will be able to tell you the amount of money they received for doing so well. This well not be the only issues that you will come across what happens to the students who really tried their best but could just not perform as well as other. Would they be allowed to receive the money as well since they are doing the best that they could. What and who would really determine how the money should be given.
Another problem that may occur is poor performance throughout the school year. Now that students are getting paid for scoring high on the standardized testing what will they do with the rest of the school work that need to be done. There might be a few students who do value their education and will still do well all year long. What will become of the lazy slacker student? The ones who only seem to excel around the time of the standardize test time. The financial incentives will cause some students to only perform when money is involved. The student or the school system will never know the full potential of the student. They will be stuck in the mind frame of if they are not getting paid they will not put forth any effort to do well. The long term effect of the money incentive will cause there to become more lazy students that will have an overall poof school record until test time.
One more very important factor to look at is the actual graduations rates. If you do start paying students to do well what would the graduation numbers turn out to be. It takes more than just doing well on a couple of test to actually pass and graduate high school. It’s a combination of test and work to make a successful well rounded student. Now you have the issues of how will you get students to pass the year instead of just standardized testing. You have to think of the future of the students of after high school. It takes more than just a high school diploma in order to get a good paying job in society. Then what about the students who do not graduate what will their future really hold. Below is a chart to shows the success rates of 2005 the students who graduate those who don’t and even those who further their educations beyond high school. This shows the average on about how much money that one could make by their educational status.

There should be one last thing to ask when considering paying students for doing well on testing. Where would this so called reward money be coming form? Its one thing if the money is being offered forms the parents but if it’s supposed to come from the school boards budget now that’s just a joke. It would not only be a joke but a waste of money. That money could be used to help build new school for the over crowing issues. We could even go a little further the money could be used for new books for the student, fixing up the current school houses, and one major upgrade would be letting that money go to the hard working underpaid teachers who actually deserves it.
All this talk about the students what about the teacher. What will be the true value of teaching be? If we are only sending out the message to students to do well on the standardized test what will the teachers be needed for all of what the students is learning could be taught through software systems. So the teacher who is actually passionate about teaching will not be able to show how much they care about teaching and the students. Growing up in the I had many teacher who really cared about us as students and wanted to see us as young adult students to do will in all aspects of education not just for the test. To be honest when you truly have a teacher who is passionate about their craft they will teach you lifelong lessons that will last long after the standardized testing is long gone.
There may be some good reasons as to why we should consider paying students to do well on testing. There will no doubt in my mind that you will see improvements but you have to realize that there are two sides to every story. Students should value education and know that it’s a privilege to attend school and the long term effect of paying students to do well would ultimemately be harmful for their future. The bad actually starts to outweigh the good when start breaking the situation down. Although money puts a smile on many faces who says that is the only thing that will excite the high school students to want to do better in school as well as on the standardized test. Other incentives should be offered to encourage students to do well on the standardized testing such as parties, school trips, or some type of assembly to acknowledge the achievements. Money incentives should not even be a choice since it will only lead students to thinking of money and not the total values of educations as a whole.