Tattoos for Better Grades?

For parents and teachers, it can be an uphill battle to get kids to do well in school. First it was cash for grades, now its ... tats for grades?

That's what one San Francisco teacher promised his students if they improved their performance: a tattoo. Not for them, but for him. Stanley Richards, a science teacher at City Arts and Technology High School, vowed he would get a tattoo of their vice principal if students raised the school's academic performance score by 50 points.

And not just any tattoo: Mr. Vice Principal would be portrayed as a sumo wrestler, holding a medallion of test scores and slaying a dragon. (Hope Mr. Richards has the number of a good tattoo-removal doctor.)

The students hit the books, and true to his word, Mr. R showed up on the last day of class with the vice principal's mug on his calf.