In order to amass a few dollars in these financially harrowing times, a middle school in North Carolina recently floated the idea of a new fund-raiser - paying for grades. Under the program’s guidelines, students could pay up to $20 to earn 20 points split into delineations of 10 points each on two tests of their choosing - that could raise the grades on those tests either from failing to a D, or from a B to an A.

For reasons other than my own specific objections to the arbitrary nature of the rules - What? A kid’s not allowed to raise a grade from a C to a B? (it was always Cs that got me grounded) - enough people voiced their opposition to the fundamental concept, that as soon as the story was picked up by the national media, the school dropped the idea.

I wish it hadn’t.

At least not so quickly.

While the principal’s arguments in defense of the program - Last year they did chocolates, and it didn't generate anything; and that the purchased points wouldn’t make a difference in any kid’s report card because it was untrue that one particular grade could change the entire focus of nine weeks - strike me as inane, I nonetheless think it would have been useful for our country to get off our collective celestial and sanctimonious horses and to have a conversation about our system-wide grading practices. Beyond the truly important but clearly heretic concern about whether grades, in the first place, are a pedagogically sound idea, I submit it would have been worthwhile to explore two specific questions: 1 - whether grades are not, on some level, for sale already; and 2 - if they are; whether a policy that baldly presents that option teaches students an appropriate lesson.

I’ll examine the broader issue of the underlying value of grades in my next post. For now, let’s take aim at the two specific questions. In terms of grades already being for sale, well, let’s just say as I walked back to my car from a meeting this evening on South University, I passed not one, but three separate storefronts housing test preparation businesses, including America’s two most pervasive: Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions; and The Princeton Review. For the low price of just $3, 599.00, you can buy yourself 32 hours of Premier SAT Masters Tutoring and Kaplan will help you score higher. Guaranteed - or your money back. In case you’re a conscientious comparison shopper, you might want to know that Princeton Review offers 24 hours of Premier SAT tutoring for $6,000.00 and also boasts a money-back guarantee. Princeton augments its guarantee by offering the before-and-after example of Joanna G. from Lake Oswego OR, who raised her combined SAT score a whopping 480 points and enthusiastically exclaims: I totally did not expect my improvement to be this extreme. It was such a great surprise! Thank you so much! Now, I'm right where I want to be for the schools I want to get into.

In case you’re looking for something a little more exclusive, I know someone who runs a boutique test-prep tutoring service in New York City that charges $425.00 an hour. For your 32-hour session, that will cost you $13, 700.00.

Of course, paying for tutoring isn’t quite the same as buying a grade, you still have to actually take the classes and do the studying. You still have to take the test. But I do want to reassure you that your purchasing power does mean something. Obviously, there are a lot of kids who won’t be able to afford these rates and will have to rely only on their natural abilities and diligence in order to raise their scores. You, on the other hand, can pay to get help. In fact, the more expensive that help is, the more likely you’ll be receiving advantages that most students won’t get. And while we’re on the subject, let’s talk about some other ways your money helps you in school. That computer you’ve got at home that you can use to do research and type your papers on, that’s worth something isn’t it? And all those books on your shelves? And your pens and pencils and that pretty backpack? And the fact that you’ve got your own quiet room to do your homework in, that helps you, right, and the fact you even have time to do your homework because your parents don’t work three jobs and you don’t have to take care of your siblings or work yourself? How about that you have a house? Or one that has electricity and heat? Oh, and it’s a good thing you get a lot of food to eat, right? I mean, the fact that your stomach’s not growling in hunger every night before you go to sleep or when you’re at your desk in school, that helps you focus, doesn’t it?

Of course, none of these advantages are the same thing as just buying grades without doing work, and plenty of wealthy kids do poorly in school, but it’s also true that there’s an undeniable correlation between household income and academic success. From that standpoint, I find it a little hypocritical to get outraged about the fact that some kid with twenty bucks might be able to afford a grade boost that another kid can’t. Sure, if everybody were on equal footing upon entering the classroom, it would be unfair for kids to be able to purchase grades. But it’s already unfair. What if we had a sliding scale? How about if household income determined how much people had to pay for their grades? Maybe a kid below the poverty level could get a grade-boost scholarship while a more affluent kid could pay a couple hundred dollars per point?

Okay, that’s not a serious proposal, but if we allow kids to buy grades in class (maybe to sell them too on an in-school public exchange, perhaps with a cap-and-trade provision), might not it also be true that we’d be teaching them something valuable about how our country presently operates? Let’s be honest, individuals and corporations pay a lot of money to lobbyists because they believe - despite all congressional protestations to the contrary - that doing so will affect the shape of legislation, or kill it altogether. Michael Bloomberg just spent, what, $300 million to win re-election as mayor of New York City? Both sides of the recent millage campaign here in Washtenaw County besieged supporters with requests for funding in order to triumph in that vote. My favorite baseball team is often accused of buying championships. Hopeful basketball fans all over the country anxiously await next summer to see who will have the opportunity to pry Lebron James away from Cleveland and purchase a chance to win an NBA title. We even talk in diplomatic terms about compensation incentives that will persuade Iran and North Korea to surrender their nuclear aspirations.

Perhaps the biggest hit from the Hip Hop crew the Wu-Tang Clan, one nearly all my students are familiar with, is a song called C.R.E.A.M. The acronym stands for Cash Rules Everything Around Me. I can’t stand that notion. In my deepest heart, I want it not to be true. I try to communicate to my students every day that money isn’t everything, that all kinds of people make all kinds of choices that aren’t based on financial incentives and gain immeasurable satisfaction from doing so. I try to model that behavior too. I’m a poet after all, and write this unpaid blog.

But I don’t want to teach my students to be naïve either.

You know what I’d really like to see?

I’d like to see test preparation businesses close their doors.

And I’d like to see students fully aware that they have the option to purchase their grades, but refuse to do it. I’d like to see kids walk into my classroom - every one of them - with fat wallets and knowing if they wanted to, all they had to do was peel off a few bills to get an A. Then I’d like to see each and every one of them say, no thanks, I’d rather earn it.

I don’t think we’ll ever get there if we cut off conversation and act like all kinds of people don’t use all kinds of money to garner all manner of advantages they don’t deserve. And, further, if we don’t take the time to really talk about how and why the rampancy of such behavior damages and degrades all of us. As a nation, I’d like to see us engage in dialogue that offers students the opportunity to come to their own understanding why having the option to purchase grades and refusing to do so is a choice that’s - to quote a sadly successful advertising campaign - priceless.

** NOTE ** Speaking of priceless … okay, actually it’ll cost you a few dollars to attend, but it’ll be money well-spent and all proceeds from ticket sales go to support the Literary Arts programs at the Neutral Zone…our biggest Poetry event of the year is coming up - Poetry Night in Ann Arbor - on Friday night, December 11th @ Rackham Auditorium. This year’s show (our 10th annual) will feature the return of some of Ann Arbor’s favorite performance poets: Roger Bonair-Agard from New York, Kevin Coval from Chicago and Lauren Whitehead, a U-M alum currently residing in San Francisco. Joining these mic-rockers on stage will be terrific high school poets from the nationally acclaimed VOLUME Youth Poetry Project and the spectacular collegiate spoken word troupe Ann Arbor Wordworks. The show starts @ 7pm. Doors open @ 6:30. Advance tickets are $5 for students and $10 for general public and $7 and $12 respectively at the door. For more info or to reserve tickets at the advanced price, contact me @ 734-223-7443 or via email @ eyelev21@aol.com.

Jeff Kass teaches Creative Writing at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor and at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, and directs the Literary Arts Programs at the Neutral Zone, including the VOLUME Youth Poetry Project, which meets every Thursday night at 7pm. He will post new blog entries every Tuesday and Thursday morning throughout the school year.