If we paid kids to go to school, would we have more productive students?

...and therefore a more productive society? Should we set up a capitalistic (or corporate) environment within the public school system to create a more mirrored environment? Why do we ask people to go to school to learn something (with no tangible incentive for them to retain the information) and then attempt to pay them to use that information (at usually about half the practical application)? Wouldn't we do better to pay them to learn it and then pay them to use it to make the country the most productive on earth?