Word: would
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...classic experiment in support of this hypothesis took place at a nursery school at Stanford University in the early 1970s. There, researchers divided 51 toddlers into groups. All the kids were asked to draw a picture with markers. But one group was told in advance that they would get a special reward - a certificate with a gold star and a red ribbon - in exchange for their work. The kids did the drawings, and the ones in the treatment group got their certificates...
...principle, Fryer agrees. "Kids should learn for the love of learning," he says. "But they're not. So what shall we do?" Most teenagers do not look at their math homework the way toddlers look at a blank piece of paper. It would be wonderful if they did. Maybe one day we will all approach our jobs that way. But until then, most adults work primarily for money, and in a curious way, we seem to be holding kids to a higher standard than we hold ourselves...
...reward ninth-graders for good grades. Over beer and pizza in a South Side bowling alley, they sketched out a plan to pay kids $50 for each A, $35 for a B and $20 for a C, up to $2,000 a year. But half of their earnings would be set aside in an account, to be redeemed only upon high school graduation...
...Washington, middle schoolers would be paid for a portfolio of five different metrics, including attendance and good behavior. If they hit perfect marks in every category, they could make $100 every two weeks. Schools in Dallas got the simplest scheme and the one targeting the youngest children: every time second-graders read a book and successfully completed a computerized quiz about it, they earned $2. Straightforward - and cheap. The average earning would turn out to be about $14 (for seven books read) per year...
...when they got their checks. They were like pep rallies - but around academic success!" he says. Fryer appeared on The Colbert Report and CNN to talk about the experiment, and that's about when the death threats started. All the while, Fryer refused to speculate about what the data would reveal. He was not all that interested in whether the kids raised their grades or turned in their homework. Grades are subjective. The more objective measure would come at the end of the year, when the students took their standardized tests. Would they improve more than the kids who were...