This is an attempt to increase incentives for kids to learn. It's fine and dandy to talk about learning for learning's sake, but where has that got us? Why have 'punishments' for not learning and no incentives for learning. Plus, it lowers the opportunity costs of education for a lot of kids. They know that they can be making money working at McDonalds or as a drug dealer, but if they get incentives to learn, the other options are no longer attractive so they are more likely to stay in school.