Like you, I am a professor of something other than English. And also like you, I’ve never had a bribe attempt.
Still, there’s something amiss here. I’m struggling to articulate precisely what the issue is, but the government paying students for grades changes the nature of the relationship between teacher, parent, and student in some ways that seem troubling to me. It doesn’t have to simply be the grift aspect.
The payoff might be worth this change in dynamic, but I don’t think it’s wise to pretend that things wouldn’t be different. I suspect that there would be significant pushback from teachers due to these changes. It could exacerbate the already adversarial relationship that seems to exist between some parents and teachers.
Good grades and recommendations leading to better paying jobs or even scholarships is abstracted enough from the monetary payoff to be different than the government making it rain for high scoring essays by second graders.
If they were the same, no one would suggest paying students for good grades, since they would already be motivated by the benefits of a good education.
I think it’s an interesting idea, but there are problems.