So Soon Surrender: Rhee and Co. Use Paycheck to Write Off Students

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, seated, visits Sousa Middle School in Southeast Washington on the first day of the academic year. With him is schools construction chief Allen Y. Lew, center, and Sousa Principal Dwan Jordon. (By James M. Thresher For The Washington Post)

Really? I asked the chancellor if that's her motivation for her tireless work in the schools.

"Do I do my work for the money? Absolutely not. However, would I do this job if I wasn't paid at all?" She couldn't do that, she said, but that was a deflection of the question. Of course, no one who does creative or enterprising work is in it solely for the bucks. At every level, whether executive or clerk, the energy put into the job is determined far more by a sense of pride, belonging or achievement. That doesn't mean money isn't a factor in job happiness. But money is at best a short-term, superficial motivator.

School, as Rhee has often said, should not be a grim, bottom-line enterprise. If you can get kids to discover the satisfaction of mastering new material, you have them hooked. Paying them is the ultimate expression of surrender.

Fryer does not claim to have evidence that his program works, though he hints he will have data this fall indicating some success. But early reports from another New York City pay-incentive program show no such luck: High school students offered up to $1,000 if they scored well on Advanced Placement tests were indeed more likely to take the exams but actually scored lower than those who took the test before pay incentives took effect.

Must 3,000 D.C. students really be subjected to this degrading experiment? We live in impatient times, and Mayor BlackBerry and his dynamic schools chief want to get there right now.

Here, kid, here's a dollar. Now shut up and learn.

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