Better Than Cash

TIME Magazine’s April 16 cover story poses a provocative question: Should Schools Bribe Kids?

Before you share “no” as your final answer, consider comments shared by Chyna, an eighth-grader in Washington—a study participant who received payments. The TIME reporter asked her opinion about psychologists’ assertions that children should work hard and do well in school for the love of learning alone. “Honestly?” she asked. “We’re kids. Let’s be realistic.”

While the article neither endorses nor condemns offering students cash to learn, I found this topic fascinating because of the study’s focus—student motivation. The Harvard team that conducted the study wanted to see if money could serve as an incentive that improves academic performance. The research director based his interest in this approach because “unlike reforms focused on the teacher of the curriculum, it treated kids not as inanimate objects but as human beings who behave in interesting ways.”

What does this have to do with Kids Hope USA?

Plenty.

We seek to help children become motivated to learn, too. Our currency, though, possesses much higher value than cash. Every Kids Hope USA child receives an encouraging, affirming, loving relationship. And time after time after time we see students erasing labels they carry, like “unable to learn” or “poor reader.”

How does this happen? When a child learns that he or she matters, then life starts to matter. School starts to matter. Learning matters.

Yes, many students need motivation. And I believe they need the kind that money can’t buy.

David Staal serves as the president of Kids Hope US, senior editor/columnist at Christianity Today, Inc., and as an author. His most recent book is titled Words Kids Need to Hear (Zondervan, 2008).