Pam Belluck wrote an article for nytimes.com on February 5, 2006 that follows a trend in some primary and secondary educational circles of rewarding students for perfect attendance. It’s probably not the idea of rewards that is important here, but the size and shape of them.

Here’s a list of rewards described in the story: ice cream, $25 per quarter, bicycles, video game systems, iPods, DVD players, a trip to Disneyland, a month’s mortgage, laptops, the choice of a new Saturn Ion or @10,000. (The parents chose the money). Makes you almost want to be a kid again.

Schools need kids. Kids need school. Parents are the key ingredient. Who’s getting paid in this system? You don’t think that these kids will grow up expecting something special for showing up to work or a community service event, do you? Only years worth of scientific observation and follow-up will tell us, or maybe we can guess.