Leaving No Child Behind: Leveling the Educational Playing Field with Performance Based Incentives

Abstract

Studies have shown that children reared in low-income households generally have lower success rates compared to their wealthier counterparts, and often reflect a decline in academic performance, a higher propensity to commit crimes, and higher teenage pregnancy rates. The educational, socioeconomic, and structural environment in conjunction with parental and peer influences directly impact a child’s educational achievement and aspiration to be successful. Research shows that monetary or other reward based incentives can be effective in promoting high achievement in such a way that it could potentially reduce the achievement gap between those from low-income backgrounds and those from more fortunate households. With an emphasis on the factors of educational inequality, socioeconomic inequality, structural inequality, parental influence, and peer influence, my thesis examines the effects of incentives on student achievement as it directly pertains to shortening the gap between the achievement rate of low-income students and their wealthier counterparts.