What 28 million gets you

That collective sigh of relief you just heard was made because education in North East Florida was just saved by the Race to the Top Grants. In case you missed it we are scheduled to receive about 28 million dollars over the next four years. Now it’s true that ends up being less than one percent of the budget over that time period but don’t let that distract you from the fact that education is saved.

Now there are a few strings attached to the money. We have to spend it on teacher raises based on student performance, data systems and to bribe, err pay teachers to work at low performing schools. Ironically or maybe fortunately, that’s the three things we desperately needed to spend money on to save education. How great is that!

Now some people think we could better spend the money in other ways, but they either obviously don’t care about saving education or know any better. I’ll mention some of their suggestions but they are all pretty silly.

After all why would we want to spend the money on social workers to provide are most desperate and needy students wrap around services and why would we want to hire psychologists to get to the root of the same children’s problems. What difference does it make that most of the reasons children act up or don’t try at school has nothing to do with what is actually happening at schools. We’re going to have improved data systems PEOPLE!!!

Some people think the biggest thing the school district needs is busses, yep they think after school busses would have more of an impact on learning than teacher performance pay. They think if we had more busses kids could stay after school and get extra help and other kids can stay after school and get consequences for bad behavior but that’s obviously not important. If behavior and extra help were important then the race to the top grants would have allowed for money to be spent on busses. As if well behaved kids and extra help plays any role in the learning process.

I know a lot of people think we should bring back the teaching of trades and skills and dedicate shools to the arts as well. The problme with that is the race to the top grants aren't about engaging kids or providing alternative curriculums that might better suit them, thus better engage them, so lets move on.

Finally some people think paying for summer school would be beneficial too and I am not talking about the districts version, which is to throw kids in front of a computer and have a teacher or two walk around, and ask blank faces, how they are doing but legitimate classes were learning goes on. You know classes were kids could learn what they missed or maintain what they have, plus having the added benefit of keeping them off the streets doing structured activities. But DATA PEOPLE!!! That’s where it is.

Yep, education was indeed saved… sigh…