By Dave Stafford, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
ANDERSON — A new state initiative offering up to $20,000 to high schools that show the sharpest increases in graduation rates is receiving a chilly reception from Anderson’s education chief.
Under the program announced Monday by State Superintendent Tony Bennett, 12 Indiana high schools with the greatest increase in graduation rates between the end of this school year and the end of the 2009-2010 school year will receive cash awards. Ten schools with 300 or more students will each receive $20,000. Two schools with fewer than 300 students will get $10,000.
“We want to reward performance,” Bennett said Monday in an Associated Press story. “We want to pay for results.” Principals of schools that receive the award will have discretion over which staff members receive the money.
At Anderson Community Schools, where graduation rates have trailed the state average for a number of years, Superintendent Mikella Lowe was skeptical. She said that at Anderson and Highland high schools, $20,000 might not be a strong incentive for a staff of about 100 at each school. It would work out to about $200 per staff member if divided equally.
“I don’t know that I think that offering a couple hundred dollars to a teacher or administrator will truthfully get them to do something they weren’t doing anyway,” Lowe said.
“We’re all working toward increasing the graduation rate and we are continuing to try different ways,” she said.
While Lowe said the program might offer an incentive to some, it also raises questions about how schools might choose to award the money. “Are you going to look around and say ‘English teacher A is responsible for raising graduation rates but English teacher B is not?’,” Lowe said, “Or are you going to say we’re all in this together?”
Contact Dave Stafford: 648-4250, dave.stafford@heraldbulletin.com
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
