<p><a href="http://www.startribune.com/484/story/1044913.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.startribune.com/484/story/1044913.html</a> </p>
<p>Would cash incentives make your child more interested in taking AP tests? Would that change the cost:benefit ratio of self-study enough to increase this year's number of APs?</p>
<p>As the article said, the cash offers have worked in Texas. So well, that a few schools have led the nation in several AP statistics. </p>
<p>Yes, they do get more kids taking the AP classes, and even passing the tests. The central question remains about the validity of the entire AP program as a meaningful yardstick, or much worse a substitute for a progressive curriculum. </p>
<p>Texas has shown to be particularly prone to adopt the latest fads, be the AP a generation or more ago, or more recently the highly debatable IB. Either way, it boils down to abdicating the curriculum to the boys in Princeton, inr New York, or worse in Geneva. Believing that ETS/College Board or an outgrowth of the UN will solve all our education issues takes quite a leap of faith. </p>
<p>None of those of programs have done much to combat the real calamity that affects Texas, namely its huge dropout rate in high school, and later in college.</p>
<p>Way to go, xiggi. Excellent post.</p>
<p>"Exemplary schools and school systems continually search for creative ways to bring out the best in their students..."</p>
<p>How laughable that a paycheck is "creative." And that is considered "bringing out the best."</p>
<p>Here's a thought: rigorous classroom expectations. A crack teaching team. A non-wimpy administration with enough spine not to cave in to parental whining about enforcement of standards, or to political pressures. Authority re-invested in the teachers to require excellence for every A. (Psst: "A" stands for "excellence.") Make this your model/magnet school which becomes the example for other schools to envy & choose.</p>
<p>yeah, xiggi, that was pretty insightful! For the first time I've seen u posting!</p>
<p>
[quote]
The nonprofit group behind the $125 million offer made Friday says it aims to raise AP achievement in certain public schools where an incentive might make a difference
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It occurs to me that $125 million is a lot of money to spend paying students bonuses for AP test performance. Couldn't that amount make more of a difference if spent on developing a program (on-line, maybe?) to afford more students AP opportunities?</p>
<p>Or is it just that they want more students to take AP exams? I don't see what the specific objective is.</p>
<p>It will be an interesting study if they follow it closely. </p>
<p>If students learn that studying can lead to financial rewards will they be more inclined to attend college? The next financial reward will just come 2 or 4 years later rather than a year for the AP award. In addition if some of these kids start college with a semesters worth of credit will they be more inclined to finish? Will someone be helping these kids apply to college/apply for financial aid?</p>
<p>I think it's worth a shot although I believe AP should be big enough to offer to foot part of the bill.</p>
<p>I am assuming they are not targeting schools that already have good #'s of kids taking and passing AP.</p>
<p>I heartily endorse this idea! As a single mom with a high-achieving high school senior, any financial help we can use towards college would be a GREAT help. He will be in the first in our family to attend college; ACT score of 35; physics SAT of 800, etc; accepted at Rice interim...unfortunately his
father refuses to help once his court-ordered child support ends in 3 months. Our FAFSA includes child support for 2006; so numbers are way off. This payment would at a minimum help defray the cost of taking the AP exams.</p>
<p>Now if only I could find out more information...have searched the web and simply come up with same news release linking to National Science Initiative and APS, no real info.</p>
<p>I read in a newspaper a year or so back, in Palm Beach County, FL, school get $2,000 for each passing AP test. I don't know how wide spread the practice is. I think this is the way to go to provide school sufficient incentive and resource to improve their curriculum.</p>
<p>Aren't we a bit of the kettle calling the pot black here?</p>
<p>Why do kids take AP classes? for the fun of it? cause they want a challenge? </p>
<p>OK, now that we've successfully eliminated 1% of the kids, why do the other 99% take AP... for help getting into college and a reduction of tuition costs. Someone collecting $250 now for a test or $250 later for college costs via scholarship is different? </p>
<p>Whatever works. All I know is most people look at AP, IB and honors as a way to get somewhere. Actually I can't think of anyone who takes these types of classes for s....s and giggles. </p>
<p>And my beloved xiggi, whom I rarely agree with has one point correct..educational ideas from TEXAS (sorry T) should be looked at with a careful eye. NCLB had it's origins in Texas, great success via a little cooking the books. If you can get a kid to drop out, they have increased the overall scores by removing dropouts from the count. Xiggi is spot on with this comment.</p>
<p>However, I do think AP classes are valuable in the sense it does show a student what college studies require commitment wise. The couple hours a night for AP studies basically conditions a student to put the same kind of time in college. Habits are important. AP helps build good habits. </p>
<p>Plus there's the added bonus of housing and scheduling in college that AP credits provide. My college experience meant hoping the class I needed was available when I registered. My AP fat kids, never worried about second choices for classes, they always have gone ahead of their college peergroup. Little bonuses, down the road.</p>
<p>Opie ofMaybery2</p>
<p>I agree about the value of AP's. My HS senior S has been told by friends attending the college that he is most interested in that using the AP's he has will get him into vastly preferable junior-class housing in his second year. </p>
<p>Also, even at $83 per AP course, if the student graduates early, the value to the people paying the tuition is HUGE. My S thinks of AP's as his way of getting a double major in the same 4 years.</p>
<p>If AP's are really at a college level of instruction (I have my doubts), it might be a plus to take one in HS so the student know he or she can "hack it" in college. I have a friend who has a grand child whose parents did not go to college and the grand child was terrified that she wasn't college material until she took an AP and did well.</p>
<p>If some group wants to incentivize the AP, why not?</p>
<p>Paying the kids to take AP exams is ridiculous. Why not also pay them a certain amount for getting an A or a B or a C? Why not pay them if they're willing to take a higher level math or science course? Why not pay them based on how many tennis games or football games they win? </p>
<p>A payment plan like this doesn't scale so why bother starting it in the first place other than as an experiment? The kids and families already gain by being more readily admitted to certain colleges, paying less in tuition, and possibly winning scholarships so why do they need an additional incentive?</p>
<p>It looks like College Board are the winners in this deal.</p>
<p>^agreed! .....</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why not also pay them a certain amount for getting an A or a B or a C?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>LOTS of parents do that, some more directly than others. (I'm not such a parent, but I hear about that all the time.) Some beleaguered school districts in poor areas have private funding to reward students for good grades, too, and I think there may even be a few programs like that with public funding. I think you have heard about rich donors who announce that all kids who graduate from their alma mater high school will receive full scholarships to college. Ridiculous or not, money is on offer in some places to encourage kids to do what I urge my kids to do for free. </p>
<p>P.S. Now I'll start smiling, as I ask a tougher question. Why should anyone pay kids to go to school, by subsidizing school with taxes imposed on the general populace? It looks like the people who staff the government-operated schools are the winners in this deal. </p>
<p><a href="http://learninfreedom.org/school_state.html%5B/url%5D">http://learninfreedom.org/school_state.html</a></p>
<p>My kids attend one of the Texas schools in the original pilot program. I can tell you, from experience, it makes a huge difference in the teaching & the learning that go in. For the targeted students, who are primarily low income, it encourages them to try a more challenging course load. These kids are motivated by $'s in ways that more affluent kids are not. For the teachers, it encourages them to become better teachers through professional development, increasing the rigor of their teaching, pushing their students to higher levels of achievement. I have seen this program change the culture of a school from one that only pushed the naturally high achieving students, to pushing all students to higher levels. Advanced Placement Strategies, mentioned in the article, has data out the wazoo that supports this program. Remember that it is primarily targeted at schools with low income kids - those who, otherwise, wouldn't have the opportunity offered by an AP program.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why should anyone pay kids to go to school, by subsidizing school with taxes imposed on the general populace? It looks like the people who staff the government-operated schools are the winners in this deal.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>tokenadult</p>
<p>My son asked me once if I resented having to pay real property taxes in Texas that are used exclusively to fund public education since he went to a private school. I smiled when you posited essentially the same question.</p>
<p>Anyone: When did the concept of "free" public education start in the US?</p>
<p>First, why not pay the cost of the tests for each student, or at least give a rebate for the cost of passed AP tests.</p>
<p>I agree with anyone in this thread who thinks that other people learning stuff has a positive externality--in other words, that I'm better off if my fellow citizens learn stuff. That said, I would rather subsidize demonstrable learning than mere attendance at an approved holding center. But I will put up with paying taxes for either kind of program, and I don't make use of those programs personally. </p>
<p>P.S. The history of schooling in the United States is detailed in some of the books mentioned in the bibliography I have already linked to.</p>
<p>"Why not also pay them a certain amount for getting an A or a B or a C"</p>
<p>Somebody does... All I know is my kids got those A's and now somebody else is shelling out about a quarter mill for the both of them. </p>
<p>I never paid my kids for grades personaly, but I did explain that other people would and they do. If you find fault in this effort to get more kids "inspired ", do you also find fault in Merit awards? </p>
<p>I sat with one college admissions officer who flatly told us "at XYU we don't believe in merit scholarships. " My reply was that's OK, we do. We just went and found another school that did. </p>
<p>You eventually most of us will get paid for good grades as well.. it's called a salary. If it works and gets more kids doing well and looking at college, fine.</p>
<p>In my kids school, the cost of the AP Exams is mostly paid for, especially for low income students. They do have to pay something as they want them to have some level of investment in the exam. The subjects included are Math, Science & English. Social Studies is not included. Want to guess which subjects have the lowest AP pass rates and which are the least rigorous? Social Studies, of course. Watch those pass rates go up as the school begins to hold those teachers accountable for pass rates.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Anyone: When did the concept of "free" public education start in the US?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No the answer you wanted, just some background.
<a href="http://www.thememoryhole.org/edu/school-mission.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.thememoryhole.org/edu/school-mission.htm</a></p>