I did something for my daughter the other day that I now think was ethically wrong. My daughter says I did the right thing. It all started with a roll of masking tape.
One of my daughter's teachers offered a small amount of extra credit to anyone who brought in creative supplies for the class. My daughter could get a better grade with a roll of masking tape or a box of markers. Buying more than one item wouldn't get more extra credit, so we're talking a small, limited amount of money. We made a quick trip to the office supply store. She got the extra credit. Those are the facts.
Was I a supportive parent or did I teach my daughter the wrong lesson?
You might think that extra credit for supplies feels uncomfortably close to a bribe. Some of my graduate students at UW tell me that in their home countries it's common to open an exam only to find money folded inside. We don't want bribes in schools here.
But masking tape is not quite a bribe because it's not going to the teacher; it's for the class. The extra-credit-for-supplies deal is common in this high school and there's nothing secretive going on. Everything's out in the open. My daughter argues that credit for masking tape is no different from requiring each student to equip themselves with a particular kind of lab notebook or a set of No. 2 pencils as a prerequisite for taking a class. At least the masking tape benefits everyone, not just the individual student.
My real reason for feeling uneasy about buying supplies for credit is that it favors kids from families with money. My daughter criticized, nicely, this knee-jerk reaction on my part. We're only talking a couple of bucks here. Everyone in her class can afford that. While there may be teenagers who can't come up with two dollars, there aren't many. If getting extra credit involved a lot of money, my daughter agrees, it would be wrong. But the price of a roll of tape excludes no one.
Some of my UW colleagues presented a different argument: Grades should reflect academic performance, not willingness to buy masking tape.
That's lovely, except it's not true that high school grades are based on nothing but academic work. Teachers give extra credit for bringing back your report card with a parent's signature and for similar nonacademic activities. Good grades are about the only incentives teachers have. They use grades to encourage behaviors that enhance learning, but don't directly measure performance.
My daughter reports that her teacher brings academic concepts to life by combining craft supplies and ingenuity. Adequate school supplies really help learning in this particular class. Furthermore she argues, extra credit for masking tape isn't much different from extra credit for bringing in a signed form.
My daughter says that these supplies greatly enhance the learning environment and the teacher has no other way of getting them. Isn't supporting education a high moral value? She argues that no harm is done by this method of collecting school supplies and that considerable harm would result from trying to teach without them.
On a small scale, we faced the classic dilemma of whether to choose the lesser evil. My daughter favors this approach. I disagree, but I'm pleased that she's trying to make careful ethical choices.
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Dick Startz is Castor Professor of Economics and Davis Distinguished Scholar at the University of Washington. He can be reached at econcol@u.washington.edu
This column appeared in the following publication:
Everett Herald, July 6, 2005
Bellingham Herald, July 10, 2005