"My kids need incentives to do really well, and they're not privy to some of the finer things that other kids are."

Said a middle school teacher in the South Bronx, who supports Mayor Bloomberg's plan to pay cash rewards to students for getting good grades. (Note that it's privately raised money, not tax money.)

Do you approve of using cash incentives to get kids to work? Does it teach them the wrong thing -- merging grade grubbing with money grubbing -- or exactly the right thing? Isn't it absurd that we expect kids to study for the sheer love of learning or to achieve goals that are very far in the future when most of us don't behave like that -- and we're adults, with better impulse control?

Cash incentives for studying have at least three distinct benefits: 1. Kids learn the material they've been motivated to study, 2. Kids learn the life lesson that by doing good work you can get money, and 3. Once they have money, kids have a chance to learn how to handle money sensibly. Re #3:

Maryann Manzolillo of Intermediate School 162 in the Bronx said she would put the incentives in school-based bank accounts, then use them to teach kids about managing money.

Re #1:

Now, she said, attendance is low on interim-testing days. "Children say, 'Oh, it's a practice test. It doesn't count,'" she said. "Money makes everything really count."

Some teachers and parents yesterday applauded the idea of motivating kids, but others, including Tina Pack, a mother of eight who lives in public housing on the upper East Side, had reservations.

"In my mind, kids will cram to do better on a test, but what knowledge will they gain?" she said. "I never say if you get an A on a test I'll give you a reward.... What if maybe you're working really hard and you get a B? I'm trying to reward the learning."

Of course, I wish Ms. Pack well as she does what she thinks is best trying to raise 8 children. I hope she is able to motivate all those kids to study effectively and to learn in some deep way that transcends grade grubbing. But I have some issues with her statement.

First, the word "cram." People who want to excuse the failure to study are always using the word "cram" to characterize what other people do. They're just cramming, so it's not real learning. They'll learn just what they need for the test, for only as long as they need it for the test, and then it will all be forgotten. But does this attitude lead to a better way of studying or just hopelessness about ever learning anything?

It's just a reality that we forget much of what we learn (or store it in a way that leaves us incapable of retrieving it at will). I used to study for exams in law school to the point where I could mentally visualize my entire outline and find whatever I needed to write my answers. It might be handy if I could still refer to those outlines in my head, but if I had the chance to magically cause all the notes I ever studied to become mentally visible like a law school outline on the day of an exam, I would decline. If I had that power, I would not be a human being, as I understand what it means to be human.

Studying for exams is worthwhile, and the failure to remember everything doesn't mean you "crammed" just for the sake of the test. You went through a process that transformed your mind and part of the transformation is moving beyond the point where the information is fully readable.

Second, Ms. Pack worries about paying kids based on the result rather than the effort: "What if maybe you're working really hard and you get a B?" She then says "I'm trying to reward the learning," which suggests that the results of the test are less indicative of learning than the effort you put in. But people often work very hard at something and do it poorly. And, similarly, you might find an efficient way to get something done well in very little time. Why teach kids that the ideal is to slog away laboriously? A test is a good way to check how effectively you are working. The time you spent leaning over the book is not.

Now, obviously, there's the problem of some kids having more aptitude. Bob reads something once and can ace the test and get $10, while Joe has to go over and over it to ace the test and get his $10. Or maybe he'll only get a B and $5. Well, there's a lesson in that, but do you think it's a lesson we should protect children from learning? Maybe not. If Joe and Bob played a sport, and Bob had greater aptitude, wouldn't we think it was good if Joe saw that and felt motivated to train very hard so next time he could win -- or just make a better showing for himself?

Kids know there are different aptitudes. Efforts to hide this are ineffective and patronizing. Offering cash prizes for achievement can be a way to externalize and thus make less of a big deal out of these differences. It might be better if academic work felt more like a sport.