By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
A new program designed to boost math grades in Houston’s Independent School District (HISD) will award fifth-graders at select schools more than $1,000 for passing math tests.
The Houston Chronicle is reporting that the $1.5 million program, funded by the Dallas-based Liemandt Foundation, will offer incentives to students and parents at 25 elementary schools that currently rank among the lowest in math achievement.
In the pilot program, students can earn up to $440 for passing short math tests that prove they have mastered key concepts. Parents will a slightly smaller award for helping their children do the work, and can earn an extra $180 for attending nine conferences with teachers to review their child’s progress. Combined, this can put up to $1,020 into the pockets of students and their parents.
Teachers also stand to benefit financially from the program, which will reward them with $40 per student for holding parent conferences.
“This is trying to say (to parents), ‘We want you to be involved with this math process,'” said Chuck Morris, HISD’s chief academic officer. “And it is an incentive for them to take that time to go to the school. In many cases, where we have parents who are working hard and are barely making ends meet – 80 percent of our kids are on free- and reduced-lunch – why shouldn’t we help them in order to be more involved?”
Thus far, HISD has identified 70 elementary schools that could be eligible for the experimental program, but parents and teachers would have to commit to it to be among the 25 chosen.
However, only one in four Americans favor the idea of paying students for achievement in school, even though a similar number admits that they have paid their child for academic accomplishments.
Similar programs have been tried before in Chicago, Dallas, New York City and Washington, D.C. Results were mixed, with improved performance found only in the Dallas and Washington programs.
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