If you pass the AP exam, I'll give you $100

We all know that school isn't a game show, right?  But what if instead of piling money into special teaching programs or remedial programs, we offered money as an incentive to perform at the highest levels?

One school is trying that and managed to boost its AP enrollment in statistics. 

South High Community School, adopted a come one, come all policy for Advanced Placement courses. Today Mr. Nystrom teaches A.P. statistics to eight times as many students as he used to, and this year 70 percent of them scored high enough to qualify for college credit, compared with 50 percent before. One in four earned the top score possible, far outpacing their counterparts worldwide.

Wow, that's no little improvement.  In fact, many of those additional students were from low income and ethnic minority groups.  It's probable that the cash alone did not increase performance, but given how much money is spent per pupil on education, and given how low enrollment is in many AP courses, the $100 per student is a drop in the bucket compared to the costs of additional teachers and supplies for other courses.  The benefits are huge.

More students take and pass advanced courses.  Other courses have reduced class sizes, which either assists a teacher by having a smaller class size or eliminates sections of courses to free up teachers to do other things.  Teachers benefit from additional pay.  It seems like a win-win-win system for students, teachers, and schools.  Of course, this evidence is anecdotal for now.  We'll see how things turn out as over 300 schools are involved in the program.