To me this seems like a nice gesture but largely ineffective.
The fact is it takes effort to make changes that would earn this money and the school districts who are willing to make that effort are the ones that already care. So while it’s great to reward teachers and school districts that excel those people were probably already doing good jobs (or at least competent ones). So giving them more money is nice but doesn’t really solve the problem.
The problem is the lethargic ones. The ones who are so lazy and incompetent that they wouldn’t even try for this money. The districts that are so pulled down by incompetent teachers who can’t be fired that improvement is all but impossible for them. Fixing education means finding a way to deal with those people and this push doesn’t seem to address them at all.
The grant money in this article is targeted at states, not at individual schools. Most of the states in the US applied. Applications involved legislative-level effort.
Moreover, the program was structured so that simply assembling an application kickstarted reform efforts.
My read is that the actual money being disbursed is kind of a red herring. The real benefit of the program is that it forces a bunch of states to start piloting teacher-tenure and seniority reforms, which, a few years from now, may serve as models for the rest of the states.
The fact is it takes effort to make changes that would earn this money and the school districts who are willing to make that effort are the ones that already care. So while it’s great to reward teachers and school districts that excel those people were probably already doing good jobs (or at least competent ones). So giving them more money is nice but doesn’t really solve the problem.
The problem is the lethargic ones. The ones who are so lazy and incompetent that they wouldn’t even try for this money. The districts that are so pulled down by incompetent teachers who can’t be fired that improvement is all but impossible for them. Fixing education means finding a way to deal with those people and this push doesn’t seem to address them at all.