That’s a mighty fine carrot

By Liam Day
April 11th, 2008

There is what I think is an instructive article on interdistrict school choice in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette this morning. As part of education reform 15 years ago, public school districts can choose to accept students from other districts, in turn receiving reimbursement from the state for the costs incurred educating those students. Conversely, districts that lose students lose money. As with the creation of charter schools, the idea was to use competition to spur school improvement.

Last spring, the Worcester School Committee, in a split vote, chose for the first time to accept interdistrict choice students. Last night, looking toward the 2008-9 school year, the school committee elected again to accept interdistrict choice students. This time the vote was unanimous, including two opponents of the measure last year. Why the change of heart?

It seems Worcester was able to attract 29 students from outside the district, receiving roughly $5,000 per student in reimbursement from the state. The money will come in handy as the district attempts to close a projected $3.1 million deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2008.

Now imagine if Worcester were to innovate aggressively and demonstrate concrete academic progress as measured by MCAS. It’s just possible that more and more students from outside Worcester might want to attend the city’s schools and the district would, in turn, receive more and more state reimbursement, which would, in effect, be nothing more than pay for performance.

I think this may be just what the architects of education reform envisioned when they created interdistrict choice almost 15 years ago.