The New York Post reports:
An experimental anti-poverty program that pays poor New Yorkers for good behavior like getting health insurance and attending parent-teacher conferences has had mixed results. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s pilot program began in 2007 and the first analysis was released Tuesday.
In two years, 2,400 participating families were paid a total of $14 million. Payments averaged about $3,000 a year per family. The money came from private donations.
The city said participants improved on several targets. More people established bank accounts and stopped using costly check cashing services. More people saw the dentist.
The rewards had no effect on school performance and attendance for young children or low-performing high schoolers.
The idea was modeled on efforts in other countries.
UPDATE:
Cash isn't king in some schools in the city's poorest neighborhoods.
Elementary- and middle-school students had been enrolled in a bold experiment to effect social change -- where they and their families get cash for meeting various improvement goals. But they usually performed no better than counterparts in a control group that didn't collect a cent, according to preliminary data released yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg.
But money did make a difference when it came to well-prepared ninth-graders who registered better attendance records and Regents scores than those who didn't get paid.
Some of the payouts were substantial: passing a single Regents exam was worth $600.
A small number of families in the program collected more than $10,000 a year after meeting numerous education, health and jobs targets. The average payout was $3,000 a year.
Overall, $14 million went to 2,400 families over two years.
The early results of the three-year, privately funded Conditional Cash Transfers -- modeled on an initiative introduced by Mexico in 1997 and the first of its kind in the United States -- were mixed and far from conclusive.
"The program on the whole did produce some highly encouraging results," said the mayor.
"But it is not the be-all and end-all and it doesn't work in every case."
Families that received cash rewards ended up better off economically, with more reporting having bank accounts, being able to "make ends meet" and having enough food.
Officials said such an outcome wasn't obvious, since families could spend the extra cash any way they saw fit, even if that meant splurging on a flat-screen TV when the refrigerator was empty.
"They're spending the money in ways that are useful to the family," reported James Riccio of MDRC, the private agency evaluating the program.
But the results on the education front were largely disappointing.
For example, students could get $350 for passing the English-language proficiency exam in the fourth and seventh grades.
In both grades, however, those getting cash underperformed those who didn't.
The big bounce came with ninth-graders who did well in eighth grade.
They leaped above the control group in attendance, credit earned and Regents exams passed.
Janis Dudley, a Brooklyn mom who earned $7,610 over two years in the program, said she never had a library card before and after receiving one -- and collecting $50 -- wrote a résumé and got a job with the city.
Her daughter, Qua-neshia Darden, 17, accounted for $3,550 of the haul, including $1,200 for passing all four of her Regents exams.
She's now an honors student at Maxwell HS.
When he launched the program in 2007, Bloomberg said that if it was successful, he hoped to expand it using public funds.
Yesterday, he made no commitment to go beyond a three-year trial.
"Basically, we are going to sit back and see if some of these results are going to be permanent," he concluded. The final study on the results is due in August 2013.
I bet those countries were European socialists democracies.
No doubt this stupid idea came from the warped minds of the Liberal Intelligentsia that thought so little of the dignity and self respect of poor people.
How demeaning is it to one’s character to think that’s it’s acceptable to receive money for activities that should be done simply because it’s the right thing to do.
I was offended by this because it was an attack on self-worth in the guise of government offering a helping “money hand”.
But, it seems the only people surprised by this program’s failure are the very same Liberals who think the lowly poor are incapable of rising above their condition without their help.
These Libs will never learn!
Via New York Post
The Last Tradition
