Governor Jan Brewer has an idea.
It is a bad idea.
Someone please explain it to her.
She wants all schools to start with the same base funding (perhaps lower than what they have now). Then to give bonuses to schools that get an A or B!
As this blogger, David Safier, explains, the schools that get high marks are likely to be the school serving the students from affluent families.
Governor Brewer’s plan will increase inequity in funding and drag down poor kids whose schools need more staff and more resources. It will reinforce the Matthew Effect where those who have get more, and those who have not get less.
Safier proposes a way to make performance bonuses equitable, by factoring in family income.
Personally, I oppose funding schools in relation to their test scores because the tests are far too unreliable to carry that burden. And the more pressure you put on test scores, the less valid are they as measures because of the amount of time that will be squandered on test prep.
Really, someone on the governor’s staff should explain to her that there is quite a lot of research showing that bonuses tied to test scores do not produce higher test scores, although they often produce cheating and narrowing of the curriculum.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I feel quite certain, given both Arizona’s history and Jan Brewer’s, that she knows full well what the impact will be and that is why its being proposed. But I also think the people of Arizona would oppose this if there is a vigorous push back.
Sounds like she has it backwards. Failing schools should get more funding so they can make improvement.
It’s called shooting the wounded.
URGENT
Breaking emergency in Arizona. Please read this message from the Student Immigrant Movement
http://www.simforus.com/
CALL NOW TO STOP HALINA’S DEPORTATION!
Halina’s court hearing takes places today at 1:00 pm MST! We only have 3 hours left to stop her deportation!
Please take three minutes of your time and call Arizona’s ICE Public Advocate Eduardo Preciado at 602-766-7003 or 602-766-7030 and say the following:
“Hello my name is ___________, from [city, state]
And I am calling to ask Field Office DIrector Katrina Kane to please exercise prosecutorial discretion and stop the deportation of Halina Nowak (A# 087-168-107). Halina is an upstanding member of our community, providing care and support for developmentally disabled children. Her daughter Monika will be left in alone in this country if her mom is deported.”
Thank you.”
For years, Halina has fought her deportation. Now she turns to you as her last hope. If deported, Halina would be leaving behind her only child, Monika, who is a DREAMer waiting for DACA approval. Monika fears losing her mother because she is the only family she has in the U.S.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on the issue of test scores: the more we use them for anything other than diagnosing individual student’s performance the more we play into the hands of those who want to use them for inappropriate uses like VAM, school ratings, etc.
Thank you, Diane for speaking up to our Governor. Our Title I schools have suffered inequity in funding for too many years.
Really, someone on the governor’s staff should explain to her that there is quite a lot of research showing that bonuses tied to test scores do not produce higher test scores, although they often produce cheating …
Jan: meet Michelle.
Brewer’s idea seems to be the opposite of most thinking—give extra funding (bonuses) for so-called high performers and leave those that may actually need the assistance high-and-dry. Test scores are already used to do this kind of identification, so from that respect it’s not very different. Isn’t this inequity in the opposite direction?
I’m NOT saying I agree with the proposal. I’m only posing a question as something to think about.
Can we make it mandatory that anyone involved in setting motivational parameters onto schools has to read Daniel Pink’s book Drive?
If you haven’t read it yet, please do.
Thanks all for posting on this. I live and work here.
Would this be double jeopardy or a Catch-22? Either way, it punishes those schools that need the most support.
Indiana’s new governor, Mike Pence has the same plan…to increase funding for those schools which are “successful” (read wealthy) and not for the “failures.” Dan Carpenter at Indy.com (http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013301240325) says
“Bonuses to the “best-performing” schools and teachers, an unsavory concept that presumes educators work for financial incentives and threatens to make life worse for those who need the most help.”