“School is Money,” the original name of a D.C. Public Schools pilot program being instituted this fall wasn’t referring to the intangible value of an education, nor was it trying to relate to students using slang. Rather, it was alluding, quite literally, to the program’s substance: paying students—up to $100 each every two weeks—for good academic performance, behavior, and attendance. Since renamed Capital Gains, the initiative is modeled after a program underway in New York City and has been championed by DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee in a press release as an effective way to “re-engage students and increase their potential.” Though Rhee has shown a refreshing willingness to shake-up DCPS, Capital Gains misses the mark. The program is a cynical vote of no-confidence in the District’s students, a waste of scarce resources, and an abandonment of every educator’s true mission: teaching students to love learning for its own inherent value.
Through Capital Gains, school officials are sending a dangerous message to DCPS students: education has no intrinsic worth. By equating school with money instead of intellectual development and personal improvement, the District is turning a blind eye to the question of whether students are actually learning in the classroom. Regardless of whether Capital Gains improves the 14 pilot middle schools by statistical measures, the program is inherently damaging to students and teachers alike because it so blatantly cheapens the value of an education.
The program has a projected cost of $2.7 million the first year, no small sum for a school system with DCPS’s financial problems. Just this year, DCPS proposed closing several schools as a cost-saving measure, and attempts to improve academic life at the remaining schools are hamstrung by budget constraints. Rhee had proposed staffing each school with art, music, and physical education teachers, proven ways to improve the quality of public school education. However, funding requirements have prevented the application of this initiative across the District, especially in poorly funded schools. Pre-kindergarten programs, which help to eliminate disadvantages in early education, have sought several proposed expansions in the last several years and could also benefit from additional funding. DCPS should be devoting its precious resources towards programs like these instead of wasting money on a superficial, cynical program like Capital Gains.
