When all else fails let’s bribe children to make good grades. That’s the premise behind one bill introduced in our legislature. You gotta admit this is out-of-the-box thinking. Instead of paying teachers, let’s pay the students. Face it. It has worked for parents as long as we can remember.

Back in the day you got $10 for an A, $5 for a B on your report card. Wonder what the going rate would be today? How much would it take to motivate a student to make good grades? $500 per A? More?

Nevermind who would pay for this experiment, a case could be made this might be a reasonable investment if it kept kids in school. Perhaps our juvenile crime problems would diminish, we might not have to spend as much for teens in prison or other societal problems.

We pay for all sorts of crazy stuff. We pay Congress not to do anything. We pay employees who don’t work. We pay basketball coaches to win, then, when we fire them because they don’t, we pay them large sums to buy out their contracts. We pay million dollar bonuses to corporation execs who lay off thousands and make little or no profits. We even pay farmers not to grow crops.

Can we really get kids to do what we want by bribing them? If this works maybe we could pay teens to dress better, to be more respectful and not get pregnant. You know, of course the downside to this whole line of reasoning is that if kids get accustomed to being paid to do what they ought they might just decide to do nothing, yet another burden on a social security system that’s got more going out than coming in.

On second thought maybe it’s not such a good idea to pay kids to make good grades. There has to be a better way.