When I was in primary school, I had a near-perfect attendance record. Back in those days, I had a mother who sent me to school every day. I had to be very sick, have the chicken pox or something serious going on for me not to go to school. Obviously, times have changed, and nowadays schools rightly encourage parents to keep children home when they’re unwell.
Well, I came across a story out of Detroit that really got me thinking. Detroit Public Schools has a program called “Perfect Attendance Pays.” High school students can receive a $100 Visa gift card for every five-day period of perfect attendance, with the opportunity to earn as much as $1,000. According to reports, they’re now looking to continue the program and expand attendance incentives to middle school students. Yes, children are essentially being paid to attend school.
Now, before we laugh at it or dismiss it, Detroit has a serious problem they’re attempting to address. About 61% of students in the district were considered chronically absent during the 2024-25 school year, meaning they missed at least 10% of the school year. When more than half of your students are missing that much school, I can understand trying something different.
But it still leaves me with questions. Why aren’t the children going to school in the first place? Is it transportation? Is it something happening at home? Is it poverty? Is it bullying? Is it disengagement? Are young people struggling mentally or emotionally? Do some simply not see the value in school? In Detroit’s case, there have even been reports that immigration fears have contributed to some families keeping children home. That’s why I’m not sure paying children to show up necessarily addresses the entire problem.
I remember a teacher at my primary school saying he didn’t believe students should receive awards for perfect attendance. His argument was that the reward should be reflected in the results you produce in the classroom. Nearly 40 years later, I find myself agreeing with him.
It’s not much different from the workplace, right? You’re not paid simply for showing up to work. You’re paid for what you produce while you’re there. Obviously you can’t produce much if you don’t show up, and the same applies to education. Detroit itself says students who attend more consistently are significantly more likely to perform at or above grade level and be college ready. So it would seem that attendance matters.
But attendance should be the beginning, not the end goal. And that’s where Bermuda enters this rather interesting conversation. Instead of asking whether we should pay students simply to attend school, what incentives could Bermuda create to improve literacy, mathematics, academic performance and actual progress?
Maybe we reward improvement rather than simply rewarding the students who already get the highest grades. A child who moves from reading below grade level to reading at grade level has accomplished something. A student who was struggling in mathematics and significantly improves has accomplished something. Maybe those are achievements we should find creative ways to incentivize.
And it doesn’t necessarily have to be cash. Maybe it’s scholarships. Maybe it’s money placed into an education savings account. Maybe it’s internships, summer employment, travel opportunities, mentorships or access to programs through corporate Bermuda. Imagine a student understanding that improving academically could open the door to spending a summer inside an international business company, a hotel, a law firm, a technology company or learning a trade.
That’s where I think the bigger opportunity may be. We talk endlessly about education reform in Bermuda, but ultimately we’re not educating children simply so they can attend school. We’re educating them so they can eventually become productive adults.
We want young people leaving school able to read, write, think critically, solve problems, communicate and compete for opportunities in their own country and beyond.
Detroit is trying something different to address a very real problem, and I give them credit for that. We may not know the long-term impact of paying students for attendance for years. But maybe their experiment should challenge us to ask a different question in Bermuda.
If we’re going to incentivize our children, what exactly should we be incentivizing?
https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/detroit-high-school-students-awarded-for-perfect-attendance
