Detroit public schools are facing a chronic absenteeism problem that is nothing short of alarming. Yet the district’s response may be more troubling than the crisis itself: paying students to come to class.
Under a newly expanded incentive plan, middle school students could receive up to $500 a year in gift cards, while high schoolers could earn as much as $1,000 annually — simply for attending school.
District officials say the effort, called the “Perfect Attendance Pays” program, is meant to encourage students to show up. But critics see it as a desperate attempt to paper over a far deeper cultural and educational breakdown.
The message behind the initiative is deeply misguided: that basic attendance deserves a prize, and that meeting the lowest expectation should come with a reward.
The program has already been available to high school students for the past two school years. This month, the district announced that middle school students will now be eligible as well.
It’s an attempt to chip away at the daunting fact that a full 60.9% of students in the district were chronically absent as of the 2024-25 school year, meaning they missed at least 10% of school days.
For ten weeks between the new year and spring break, when the district’s historical data proves kids are especially unlikely to show up to class, a five-day week of perfect attendance is redeemable by high schoolers for a $100 gift card and $50 for middle schoolers per week for up to 10 weeks.
While high schoolers have been getting gift cards directly via email, middle schoolers’ parents would be handed the bonus. It’s a disturbing suggestion that parents themselves will effectively be bribed to get their kids to school.
During the 2024-25 school year, the district handed out an eye-watering $4 million to high schoolers in the form of Visa gift cards, according to Bridge Detroit. It’s just a small fraction of the district’s planned $1.1 billion budget for the upcoming year.
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The school district told The Post the initiative has “already been proven with our students and families to reduce chronic absenteeism,” noting rates in the high school dropped by seven percentage points in the first year of the program and then a further two during the second.
The district also emphasized the program isn’t directly funded by federal or state revenue but rather by “interest generated through District funds awaiting to be used for facility projects.”
A reasonable taxpayer would push back: where did those district funds come from in the first place, and how better could that interest be used than by paying kids to do the bare minimum?
They’d also be right to ask what message this sends to the sort of kids who are already inclined to miss huge chunks of the school year. Even if more of them do come to class, they’re not magically going to become engaged students.
While the district is right to argue that students who show up do better in school, there’s no way a kid who shows up of their own volition is interchangeable with a kid converting attendance into an income stream.
If anything, the teens making bank for ten weeks are going to see the school and its teachers as suckers who pay them for the favor of them showing up.
The real problem here is the emphasis on quantity over quality. The earnest kid who is sick and missed class won’t have a payday, but the girl who shows up and tunes out will.
$100 feels like a ton of money when you’re a teen, and Detroit is telling kids that they’re entitled to it, regardless of the level of their performance or the depth of learning.
For an already entitled generation, it’s about the most toxic message a school district could send.