Welfare Tied to Test Scores?

Posted by jedge 10 years, 10 months ago to Education
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Here's a thought. It's a long shot, but a thought none the less. We all know about the parents who have kids simply to get higher benefit payouts from the government. And this is going to sound absolutely nuts, but what if those benefit payments were tied to their children's test grades? What if we could empower all those people sitting at home collecting their checks, to home school their children.

The government pays out the same rate for the parents of those students who don't make the cut, but those that excel and do well, their families get higher payments. On the surface, I know this means higher social program payouts, but after a single generation, we'll actually have a crop of students that can do well and get good jobs getting them off the welfare rolls. And think about, no liberal in their right mind would argue against this, it hits all their major points. No one is getting kicked off the rolls, you're empowering them to get to off.

There would DEFINITELY be abuses in the system, but if we can educate even 20% of the current students whose family are on the welfare rolls, can you think of the cost savings and increases in quality for these kids and their generations down the line? The use of welfare is a generational thing. If we can pull a few families off of it now, we'll see huge gains down the line.


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  • Posted by LionelHutz 10 years, 10 months ago
    Given that you're describing a group of people that, rather than work, would just have another kid to take more $$$, I don't see them working on educating their current kids. Sounds too much like work to me. They can spend hours of frustrating time and have it not pay off, right? Or they can have a guaranteed payout for having sex? I see where this is going and it's nowhere good.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years, 10 months ago
    I love the idea. I have seen people get sucked into the system. There a bunch of good rules to prevent abuse. If you get on one program, it helps you get on another. A well-meaning social worker tells someone to go that this form stamped and then get a letter from blah-blah saying this and that and yadda yadda, and then you'll get money. The reasonable unemployed person goes and does it and gets the money. They don't realize too much jumping through hoops creates bad habits. It feels like doing work. It would be really good to redirect that energy toward something productive.

    I agree with your idea.
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  • Posted by mminnick 10 years, 10 months ago
    Let's see. There is no penalty for not doing well. and no direct benefit to the child/student for doing well. Not a real goo path to performance. It does encourage the parents to force the children to do better ort at least try to do better. Not sure how that wors in todays society.
    The claim that they will be off welfare in a generation is not necessarily an outcome of this experiment. The experiment says make children do better and I'll get more money. Have more children, have them perform better I get much more money.
    Doesn't really break the welfare cycle.
    Granted my statements are very very simplistic but what I describe is a scenario with a reasonable probability of occurring.
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  • Posted by $ WillH 10 years, 10 months ago
    I have an alternative idea. We abolish all social benefit programs. We also do away with all these high paying minimal skill requiring government jobs. When people cannot make a living on their own they can go to the government and get a minimum wage job. We would be replacing the man making 70k to do little with 3 or 4 people doing the same thing.

    We could then make education and training available to the individuals. Once they have a marketable skill they could move back to the private sector to make something of themselves. Educate and train people.

    Pressing people who have no drive and/or no marketable skill into homeschooling is going to do nothing but hurt children the same way as this “radical unschooling” crap is.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 10 months ago
    Who's doing the testing and giving the grades? The teacher, the parents, or some other paid school/gov official? The schools would just give a way more meals to the ones who don't meet the test scores so there's no 'unfairness' about food. I, as a tax payer, am not okay with paying for more entitlements. Paying parents to be interested in their kids grades all of a sudden would never work. They'd whine that it's not their job, it's the teacher's job..if they're test scores don't improve then it would be the teacher's fault not theirs... the test score requirements would be lowered once again in an attempt to appease and pander...bla bla bla.
    How about we ween people off welfare all together and expect people to be responsible for their own kids. What ever happened to THAT idea??
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  • Posted by rlewellen 10 years, 10 months ago
    I like what you are thinking, but this will result in child abuse. I would rather require the mothers and fathers to attend classes until they complete their GED at a separate facility. They would have to attend 2 nights a week. 3 nights a week if they add another kid on the welfare role.Parents would spend 1 hour watching kids in a common area where they can be monitored via video. Then they would spend 2 hours in class. They would have to continue going until they passed the GED. Welfare stops if they don't show up. When the child is 6 they have to get a part time job to continue benefits,
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