Paying Students to Get Good Grades...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/content/education/chi-money-for-grades-11-sep11,0,7506945.story

This article basically says that the Chicago school district will start paying students for grades.  A first reaction from the title made me furious that our tax dollars were being used to pay for the grades of inner city students, but after reading the article I saw that it came from private sources.  The article did still put me on the offensive based on its content, however.  The teacher quoted in the article says that she wants to "level the playing field."  Her point being that her inner city kids come from poorer families and she wants them to be rewarded similarly to middle-class children.  Levelling the playing field is very dangerous, not to middle class families, or even to poor families, but to all of society.  "Levelling the playing field" implies that we are all the same, and that some of us have to pay for others to come to our level.  Everyone has a brain, and therefore the right to use that brain however they see fit.  Just because I use my brain better and more often than an inner city youth does not mean I should have to pay for that youth to be at my level.  This follows the Collectivist thinking that every one of us is the same person, or at least we have nothing that distinctively makes us different than others.  It implies that everyone should have the exact same opportunity as everyone else, which is a foundation for socialism.  If everyone was the same as everyone else, we WOULD all have the same opportunities, but everyone is not the same.  The decisions that we have made have led to where we are today.  Some people chose to do well in high school in the hopes of excelling and possibl extending their schooling.  If they do not wish to get further schooling, they hope to at least get a reasonable job with which to support themselves and provide for their future.  Others have allowed themselves to become dependent on others to provide whatever it is that they need,  and have become accustomed to getting what they need because they have less.  These people have made a bad decision or two, and at some point realize that they dont have the things that they need to survive, such as food or clothing or shelter.  At this point they decide to seek government help, because the government also apparently believes in levelling the playing field.  The government gives these people monetary help in the hopes that they can dig themselves out of the rut.  What happens is the exact opposite of what is intended, and that is the continuance of the problem.  If someone gives you money for doing nothing, what incentive do you have to try to make money on your own?  If someone gives me $800 a month(or more), why do I have incentive to go earn my own?  These people have children who end up going to the Chicago inner city schools, and have no incentive to work hard.  The reason they have no incentive to work hard?  Their parents have no work ethic, because they have been bred on the belief that things will be given to them for free.  All they have to do to get money is not work, and they will milk that for all its worth.  Children seeing their parents not working hard have no reason or desire to work hard themselves, and therefore hold no value for working for something, whether it be at school or otherwise.  Instead of having the incentive or working to provide for oneself in the future, these children are given the incentive for money now.  Money  created this problem, and the cause of a problem is never a solution. 

The biggest realization we can make is that money can be the cause of a problem if we see it as the solution, especially at the government level.