Joel Klein on the Colbert Report

Colbert was very funny on Wednesday night's show-- the Chancellor not-so-much. See Colbert commenting on the administration's controversial program to pay kids for high test scores:

"Now, I love this idea of paying the students because, what it does is, it brings free-market forces to knowledge. If you score in seventh grade and make $500, you can invest that money in nerds to write term papers for you when you get to eighth grade.”

And: “As long as you’re going to be paying kids and making it seem like a job, why not just bring back child labor? Because, I’ve got to tell you, you give those 10-year-olds a couple of shifts in my textile factory, you know, a couple of fingers missing, they will hit the books hard and achieve.”

Klein made the following dubious claim: “There have been programs where they pay kids for abstinence and it’s worked.”

In fact, none of the abstinence programs have been proved effective.