CASH INCENTIVES VERSUS CASE-MANAGEMENT - CAN MONEY REPLACE SERVICES IN PREVENTING SCHOOL FAILURE

Monetary incentives given to clients have the potential of providing a simpler and less-costly means of achieving behavioral change goals th an traditional service programs, but the effectiveness of such payment approaches remains to be demonstrated. This article describes an expe riment in which adolescent girls at risk of school failure were random ly assigned to three groups: (1) a payment program in which girls rece ived a monetary incentive of $50.00 a month to improve grades or atten dance by a stipulated amount; (2) a case management program in which t he service delivery unit was a team consisting, in most cases, of a so cial worker, a teacher or other school staff, the student, and one or both of her parents; and (3) a control group that received no special intervention. Both the payment and case management interventions prove d superior to the no-intervention control group with respect to positi ve changes in grades and attendance. The case management program showe d much stronger effects, clearly surpassed the payment program with re spect to grades, and was much more positively evaluated by both the gi rls and their parents. In addition, self-esteem scores increased for t he girls in the case management program but declined for the girls in the payment program.