Student incentives work.

Student incentives work. I celebrate Professor Kirabo Jackson's article ("Cash forTest Scores," research, Fall 2008). It corroborates and extends myevaluation of the Advanced Placement Incentive Program carried out forthe O'Donnell Foundation, which pioneered the program. Beginningwith the 1990-91 school year, the foundation paid students $100 for eachpassing Advanced Placement examination score in English, calculus calculus,branch of mathematics that studies continuously changing quantities. The calculus is characterized by the use of infinite processes, involving passage to a limit—the notion of tending toward, or approaching, an ultimate value. ,statistics, computer science, biology, chemistry, and physics, plus areimbursement ReimbursementPayment made to someone for out-of-pocket expenses has incurred. for the cost of taking the exam. The program also provided a $2,500 stipend sti��pend?n.A fixed and regular payment, such as a salary for services rendered or an allowance.[Middle English stipendie, from Old French, from Latin st to each teacher undergoing training to teachadvanced courses in these subjects. Teachers received $100 for eachpassing AP examination score their students earned. In the nine participating Dallas schools, sharply increasingnumbers of boys and girls boys and girlsmercurialisannua. of all major ethnic groups took and passed theAP exams. The number of passing students rose more than twelvefold from41 the year before the program began to 521 when it ended in 1994-95.After termination, the program continued to have carry over effects: inthe 1996-97 school year, 442 students passed, about 11 times more thanthe number in the year before the program began. Interviews withstudents, teachers, and college admission officers revealed high regardfor the program. Using a much larger sample and sophisticated statistical methods,Professor Jackson Jackson.1 City (1990 pop. 37,446), seat of Jackson co., S Mich., on the Grand River; inc. 1857. It is an industrial and commercial center in a farm region. substantially extends these findings and shows higherSAT and ACT scores and percentages of students going to college as aresult of the program. He points out that at least nine western stateshave implemented similar incentive programs. Incentives appear to work in schools as they do in other aspects oflife. The lack of incentives in school seems an important reasonstudents find academics so boring and sports so exciting. Though not allincentives are monetary, rational people require reasons to work hard. HERBERT J. WALBERG Distinguished Visiting Fellow Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace is a public policy think tank and library founded by Herbert Hoover at Stanford University, his alma mater. The Institution was founded in 1919 and over time has amassed a huge archive of documentation related to President Stanford University Stanford University,at Stanford, Calif.; coeducational; chartered 1885, opened 1891 as Leland Stanford Junior Univ. (still the legal name). The original campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. David Starr Jordan was its first president.