The state's highest-performing schools - those rated excellent or excellent with distinction - would get a $17-per-student performance bonus at the end of next school year. The provision would cost the state $30 million over two years.So rewarding “success”. Okay, I get that. But, let’s think about what this actually means: pretty much across the board, wealthy districts are the ones doing well. So if they continue to do well, we’ll give them more money. To the tune of $30 million. So we’re going to give rich districts more money for doing what they are already doing…. ooookay.
Urban and rural districts are often the districts that are not doing so well and that don’t have any money. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that money solves the world’s problems and I don’t think that money equals a good education. Look at Ross: not a rich district, but always highly rated. That, actually, is a district that could do even more with a bit more money, so this is good for them. But when you consider districts like Upper Arlington – rich and highly rated – giving them a cash boost for continuing their good scores is just gilding the lily.
If you want to tie the money to performance, wouldn’t it be better spent by giving it to districts that actually improve their rating? Isn’t that what we do with kids themselves? The kids who are struggling along, who have to really work to improve, don’t we give them more stickers and head pats and attention and rewards when they do get a C instead a D? When the A student gets an A… whereas these kids do also deserve a pat on the head, how many stickers do we bother with? A students don’t need our praise to get As. Highly ranked districts don’t need more money to get high rankings.
How about a hybrid approach: those who increase their rating from the prior year as well as those already rated excellent or excellent with distinction that continue that rating and have funding levels per pupil that are, say, at the state average or below. So then we’re rewarding districts that are, in theory, increasing student achievement and helping out some already good districts that are a bit cash poor.
I know that the wealthy districts took the biggest hits in the original budget bill. I also know they have the most to lose and they're more able to raise what the State takes away. Yes, I've looked at the numbers. Yes, I know there are wealthy districts that lost nearly all of their state funding. I also know that a 25% hit to the poorest district in the state would likely be more devastating to that poor district than a 75% hit would be to the state's wealthiest district.
My assumption is that those in the Statehouse heard a whole lot of complaining from some wealthy and influential constituents and this is the way they chose to return some of that money. The cuts did seem to be fairly arbitrary (to my knowledge, the Administration still hasn't released the formula used to arrive at these cuts, so all we can really do is look at the numbers and scratch our heads). But I don't think this is the way to do it. If they want to restore some of the money, then restore some of the money. But don't hide it in a poorly structured "performance bonus."
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