Dedication to academic studies can yield immediate financial rewards, said educators and students yesterday during an event where students who satisfactorily passed a series of special exams received cash awards.
The program, Rewarding Achievement (REACH), announced that the financial incentives produced positive results in the 31 participating schools where students took and passed the AP [Advanced Placement] exam.
"It's better than working," said Abismael Díaz, a Dominican student who studied at Cleveland High School and has recently finished her first year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). "With REACH we concentrated on our studies and received the money we needed," explained Diaz, who is hoping to major in biological engineering.
The main purpose of the REACH program – sponsored by The Pershing Square Foundation and the Council of Urban Professionals (CUP) – is to prepare minority and low-income students for success in college and to cover gaps in regular education.
AP courses are equivalent to college-level courses and are offered in high schools across the nation. Universities and colleges consider a good grade on the AP exam to be one of the best indicators of a student's future academic success.
Among Latino students there was an 11 percent increase [in participation] and among African-American students a 3.5 percent rise, according to the report.
Forty percent of students in the REACH program reported annual family incomes of less than $25,000 and 75 percent had annual family incomes of less than $55,000. At the same time, half of the students in the REACH program reported that English was not their first language and close to 80 percent have at least one parent who is an immigrant.
In total, 1,240 REACH participants passed the exam.
Melissa Vallejo, 18, who will major in medicine at Columbia University, said that the economic incentive benefits everyone. "We have the money to get higher grades and we gain knowledge for having studied for this reward," said the student, who is of Ecuadorian ancestry.
New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein congratulated the students "for demonstrating academic excellence and being a leading example of [the benefits] of hard work."
