The fact that just 2% of schools are chronic underperformers [missing annual targets for five or more years] does not seem wildly overstated. Half of those are minority students of which only half graduate from high school on time. The Bush administrations budget provides nearly $500 million to help all chronic underperforming students with school improvement grants but not much on disseminating the word or building consensus around implementation and adoption. How are those monies going to be spent in the next 18 months? Good question. Some believe its virtual money and will never go into programs to improve schools .It raises an interesting question. What if they through war and nobody came?
Title I funding for high-poverty schools is said to be an increase of $406 million. But the accounts remains unspent. The budget is said to have more than doubled the size for the Teacher Incentive Fund by providing $200 million to attract our most effective teachers to work in our neediest schools and reward them for results. Yet scores remain dismal in inner city schools.
The big secret in public schools is that it's the poor schools who really get the money and then lose funding as their test scores increase. One might ask, what then becomes the real motivation for success?
