The intentions are in the right place: the goal is to measurably improve high school graduation rates through community partnerships and other programs.

The logic and the timing are what is wrong, however.

House Bill 1599, the "Pay for Actual Student Success Act" (yes, that's its real title, and it will take all the restraint I can muster not to discuss their choice of modifiers), passed the Washington State Senate last week without making many media waves. The bill establishes criteria for determining a school's improvement in high school graduation rates and then offers financial rewards to buildings and districts which accomplish this feat. According to one article, "The bill provides that if funds are appropriated in the budget to implement the cash grants, they would be awarded beginning with the 2011-12 school year. The House budget includes $6.4 million to launch the program and provide awards for two consecutive years."

In high-hog years, I wouldn't bat an eye at this kind of bill, or even its minute-by-comparison budget. Yes, I do see that its budgeted price tag is but a drop in the bucket. What the bill represents, however, is the backward logic which has gotten schools where they are at the present anyhow.

I imagine two schools, each with abysmal graduation rates. Both try to implement no-cost programming changes aimed at reducing the dropout rate. One school has measurable success. The other doesn't. Which one ought to get more money?

Many seem to want to say that the "winning" school ought to get the cash. They performed, after all. My logic is different: if the other school is investing real, measurable, observable effort to no avail, they deserve the money. They obviously need it. It is interesting to me that those who want to ascribe the free-market concept of "reward for performance/product" conveniently also ignore the market concepts of "up front investment" and the simple fact that in the free-market, failure must be an option. 

But, just the fact that this funding question is even being floated in times when class sizes are doomed to swell and teachers are destined for RIFs seems ignorant of the real factors which actually keep kids in schools. I appreciate what I honestly believe are the noble intentions of the bill: promote improved graduation rates. However, if our lawmakers really wanted to improve graduation rates, it ought not require competition unless we want to perpetuate the stratification of "winning" schools and "losing" schools. If we want to improve graduation rates, we'd invest in teachers (not paying teachers more, but paying for more teachers in order to reduce class sizes), and we'd focus less on tests and more on skills which actually matter after tenth grade for the typical non-college-bound student.

And, with that in mind… take a look at the new graduation requirement being considered in Oregon. Another well intended, but poorly conceived notion. (What about the kids who go straight to the work force? That's for another post.)