Dangling a Carrot

I don’t know if you saw this conversation yesterday via Twitter, but there are apparently states that are offering scholarship money for students to graduate early from high school.

The participants say that the incentive of offering money motivates parents and students to work harder to get their students finished with high school earlier.

Is that what our goal is in the public education system? To send students out earlier?

So we’ll have more 16 and 17 year olds headed to college rather than 18 and 19 year olds.

This program sounds great, but there are serious implications for what it teaches students and parents.

It implies high school is just a set of knowledge that has to be acquired and if you can acquire that faster, then you are ready for the next step.

It’s a pretty attractive carrot in theory, but I wonder when you actually get to eat it whether it’s rotten inside.