By Dennis D. McDonald

The ability that industry has to track our every move online got me to thinking: why not use online tracking tools, whether old cookie based systems, or Google’s Privacy Sandbox, to track whether students complete their assignments, and then use that data as the basis for small financial rewards?

Schools have long used rewards, ranging from gold stars on assignments, to in-class praise, to scholarships in return for academic achievement. Students could switch to Google-approved computers and/or browser settings to track lesson completion. A small financial reward would then be transferred to the student’s private tax-free account each time an assignment was completed. Also sent: a report to that student’s parents.

The account could then grow tax-free over time and by law could not be touched till the student graduated from high school. Only then would the funds be available for spending on further education of any recognized kind—trade school, community college, Ivy League school, whatever.

What could possibly go wrong? The technology is available. Let's use it to do some good! Why just pay students to graduate from high school when we could get them much younger with an investment based system that parents would have more control over?

Privacy advocates might have some problems with this, but has that ever stopped us? 

Copyright (c) 2024 by Dennis D. McDonald

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