Who would have thought that one day high school students would be getting paid by the state for their good grades?

Where exactly was this when I was in high school?

State representative Joe Deshotel, D-Beaumont, filed a bill to the Texas Legislators that would pay high school students at lower performing schools for their good grades.

I knew I should have failed those last few years of high school!

The money would come from the estimated $6 billion Texas is expected to receive in stimulus funds for education. A pilot program will be enacted for a few years, and if proven effective, the state may create a permanent program in the future.

Such programs have already been enacted in New York, Arizona and Washington D.C.

Freshman at schools rated academically unacceptable could earn $50 for each A, $35 for a B and $20 for a C in their core classes, which includes science, math, social studies and English classes.

“It would definitely give me incentive to do better in school,” said Ethan Keyser, a freshman at Willis High School in Conroe, TX. “[It would be] even better for the kids making really bad grades.”

There are a lot of critics to the bill, though.

Take Barry Schwartz, a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College.

“The downside to this is being ignored by those who support it, which is that once kids become accustomed to this, they become dependent,” he said in an article in the Ft. Worth Star Telegram. “They’ll want someone walking behind them the rest of their lives with an M&M to make sure they are rewarded for everything they do.”