A Better-Schools Deal: Pay Teachers More and Demand Results

What is needed to make real strides in school reform? Well according to a coalition of liberal and conservative groups, pay teachers more and demand accountability. These are not particularly new ideas, but in a recentRoll Call editorial, Morton Krondacke points to a new group that is looking to bridge the political gap.

The deal would be: Republicans agree to more equitable distribution of school funding — including higher teacher pay — while Democrats agree that teachers should be paid for performance, not just seniority.

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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has launched a project along with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, the liberal Center for American Progress and the moderate America’s Promise that will start by publishing report cards on each state’s progress on school reform.

The group also includes the Thomas Fordham Foundation among others.

At the heart of the proposal is weighted school funding, whereby money for schools flows and moves with the student, not the school system. This brilliantly simple idea means that money sticks with the student as they move through the system, with more money allocated for students of greater socio-economic need. The idea is significantly different than the "flavor of the month solution" the 65% solution. Here is a handy chart that breaks down the two ideas.

What is most intriguing about this idea is that it mirrors the real world in so many ways. Successful private schools are funded by either philanthropy or tuition based on student enrollment, the more students, the more money. Weighted school funding does the same thing, the money is tied to students.

If we take this step, the next step should be easy as well. If funding is tied to students, the argument is that school principals will have more control over the operation of their school, budgeting money as needed for that school and eliminating excessive bureaucratic oversight. Then the schools will be ready to actually compete for students, in short a more market based education economy.

But to make the move to a weighted school funding model will take something of a leap of faith among politicians and educrats. Leaps of faith are not something that politicians and bureaucrats do well.