Good Grades Mean Better Rewards

While peers watch with interest and a little envy, an average worker who improved his job performance is rewarded with a card entitling him to cash discounts on goods and services he uses every day.

It could happen in any business that wants to encourage productivity--but this scenario is taking place at Ventura County high schools that have adopted Renaissance, a program designed to improve academic achievement.

More than a dozen county schools have joined about 1,400 high schools nationwide that offer special privileges or arrange for discounts at the student store and local businesses for academic achievement. Top students earn letter jackets. Average students who boost their grades are celebrated right along with straight-A scholars.

Perquisites for pupils range from free T-shirts to dollars off dance tickets or the chance to pick the ideal hall locker location. Some schools offer free breakfast on Final Exam day or allow A and B students to register first for classes.

“The attitude has been very positive,” said Tom Parizo, director of student activities at Oxnard’s Channel Islands High School, which piloted Renaissance on the West Coast in 1989. “Students are talking about grades and want to be identified for their academic achievement.”

Ross Larson is vice president of the Renaissance Education Foundation, the outgrowth of a program developed in 1984 in North Carolina by administrators at Conway High School and local representatives for Jostens, a company that has sold school rings, jackets and graduation gowns nationally since 1897.

Seeing an urgent need to improve academic performance at the school, program developers recommended that Conway use a common business approach: rewarding evidence of effort with tangible incentives.

Conway Vice Principal Larry Biddle has been so impressed with the results that he took a leave of absence from school this year to promote the program, Larson said.

During the first Renaissance year, the student dropout rate fell 33%, Larson said. Previously, only 37% of Conway’s students passed academic proficiency tests; in 1987, 83% made the grade. Conway grads won 13 times as much scholarship money in 1987 as in 1984. Twenty percent more students took the SAT, and scores were up an average of 55 points.

Encouraged by the results, Larson said Jostens went public with the program in 1988, persuading 20 schools nationwide to start their own program.

In Oxnard, Rio Mesa High’s Dick Bellman said that after a year with Renaissance, “We’re seeing some amazing improvement.” Bellman noted a 16% reduction in failing grades and 45 more straight-A students in a four-month period. Two other Oxnard high schools are becoming involved, as well as Buena and Ventura high schools and Royal High in Simi. Conejo Valley Unified School District has endorsed the program for all seven of its high schools and intermediate schools.

Fillmore High School has “good news” postcards to send home whenever an average student is caught doing something positive, and adviser Shelley Vannoy said the student discount cards have been a hit. When Fillmore awarded its first academic letters to 31 students this fall, “The students loved it, and the parents were thrilled,” Vannoy said. “We’ve needed this.”