Does Paying Kids to Do Well in School Actually Work?

By Arianna Prothero

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Adults have long used rewards-or let’s face it, bribes- to prod children into doing what they want. But it wasn’t until the last decade that economists started looking earnestly at how educators could leverage incentives, such as gift cards, scholarship money, and in some cases cold hard cash, to motivate students to go to school and perform better on tests.