Mich. governor ties extra school cash to learning

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan's governor said Thursday that the state should capitalize on its brightest economic outlook in a decade by opening its checkbook to school districts — but only those that can show their students actually are learning from year to year.

Republican Rick Snyder's plan for districts to compete for $70 million in extra state money is part of a growing trend in performance-based education funding as cash-strapped states look for ways to do more than just spread scarce dollars around.

With Michigan heading into a new budget year without the chronic deficits that plagued it for the past 10 years, Snyder wants to reward schools for how well they educate, not for merely having the best and brightest students. Several states have tied financial incentives to standardized test scores, but Snyder's plan is somewhat different.

"This year we had a surplus, so we had a lot of requests for funding," Snyder said. "But good budgeting isn't about taking that surplus and giving everyone a little bit more money ... (it's about) rewarding success and results."

It's the same carrot-and-stick approach Snyder used last year to encourage school districts and local governments to shrink their share of employee health care benefits, share or privatize services and post online reports to make their activities more transparent to taxpayers.

The education money would be divvied up based on district performance, not individual schools. Districts would get a share of the money if their third- through eighth-graders have shown a year's worth of learning in reading or math, or have acquired above-average knowledge in several subjects over a four-year period.

While critics praised Snyder for spending more on education, they argued his plan leaves schools without the resources to make the improvements he wants.

"Any money that will be funneled back to our schools is, of course, a step in the right direction," said state Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton, the top Democrat on an education spending subcommittee. "However, these funds will only provide the bare minimum in restoring the drastic and unnecessary attack on our children's education that left our schools to increase class sizes and without money for books, teaching materials and support staff."

The Republican businessman-turned-governor has clashed with teachers unions after cutting K-12 spending by $1 billion during his first year in office. His latest proposal, for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, restores about a third of that.