Paying kids to read can boost test scores

Paying kids to do schoolwork is a very successful method to inspire better grades, better behavior, and most objectively: better test scores. That's the result of years of controversial work by a team of economists, and what's more, some really happy kids.

Harvard economics professor Roland Fryer, Jr.'s experiment was provocative, but scientifically rigorous. He compared the merits of paying children for different sorts of achievements -- test scores, grades, attendance, good behavior, or simply reading books -- to control groups in the same cities who were unpaid.