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Friday, September 29, 2006
No Love for Bicycle-Attendance Program
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I was a bit surprised by some negative response to my story about District Attorney Paul Howard’s program that gives bicycles to kids with perfect attendance at three Atlanta schools. I liked the simplicity of the idea, as well as the universal appeal of a bicycle.
Well, nothing in education is simple. Several readers complained about the child’s quote that he goes to school even when he is sick. They view this is a bad idea. Keep in mind this child is only seven. His idea of sick is a little sneezing or a stomach ache. Obviously, his mother would keep him home if he had a high fever or something, and I regret I did not make that clear. But that is a fuzzy area as to when a child should go to school and when the child should stay home so as not to spread germs to others.
Today, a letter-writer raises another point. (Scroll down to the fourth letter.) She says Howard’s intentions are good but misguided. “Students should be rewarded for academic excellence,” Cheryl Schoenberg of Dacula writes. She notes that an employee who shows up for work but doesn’t do the job well is not likely to remain employed for long.
Do you like this program and the message it sends? Or do you worry, like the letter-writer, that your child would get infected by a sick child trying to earn the bike?
