Reading Scores Given ‘Bump’ By Student Incentives, Study Finds

School-based reward programs that offer students such incentives as cash, free MP3 players, or other gifts appear to produce improved reading scores across grade levels, preliminary findings from an ongoing research project suggest.

The analysis, which looked only at charter schools because of the prevalence of incentive programs in the independent public schools, found no impact on students’ performance in mathematics.

Released May 27 by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, the study comes as a growing number of school districts and charter schools around the country are experimenting with such reward programs in the hope of improving student learning and behavior. The analysis suggests that incentive programs may well be a cost-effective measure...