How Much Would Paying Kids for Test Scores Cost?
In the midst of this budget debacle, along comes an estimate of the cost of NYC's student incentive program at full scale - i.e. if all students in grades 4-7 were eligible to receive up to $500 per year. Even a 50% success rate would cost a cool $90 million dollars - not far off from the $99 million dollars in budget cuts that will be distributed to New York City schools unless the city ponies up.
Comments
The incentive program is privately funded. It is budgeted for two years at a cost of $6 million.
Posted by: David Cantor | June 3, 2008 12:46 PM
Hi David,
I understand that the program is currently privately funded. This article provides an estimate of the projected cost of the program if it was brought to scale.
Certainly there is precedent in New York City for creating programs using private money and then moving them over to public budgets - this was the case with the Leadership Academy, which was initially funded with foundation grants and next year will be bankrolled by taxpayers.
Posted by: eduwonkette | June 3, 2008 12:56 PM
I heard that the late night "Try risk free at your home" informercials taught the Mayor everything he needed to know about running the city. Except for the money back guarantee part!
Posted by: gp | June 3, 2008 1:10 PM