Pawlenty's performance incentives draw some skepticism

It's become a familiar line if you listen to Gov. Pawlenty. He says Minnesota should stop paying for good intentions and start paying for better performance. On his weekly radio show last Friday, Pawlenty talked about using financial incentives in his budget proposal to encourage change in education.

"We do try to, in our proposal, get general money to all the schools," Pawlenty said. "But we also want to make sure that we're giving money to incentive-ize innovation and reform and change and improvement. Because we've found that unless we do that, not much changes on the school establishment."

Pawlenty has evidence that shows the approach works. Over the past year, 35 school districts and nine charter schools responded to a financial incentive to change the way they pay teachers. The 2005 Legislature passed his plan to provide $86 million in extra funding to districts that shift from the traditional seniority-based system to one that rewards teachers for their classroom performance. Pawlenty wants additional money this year to encourage participation in the program he calls Q-Comp.

The governor is proposing a similar approach to push his plan to retool high schools. "His 3R high schools is another example of let's put some ongoing money into improving our high schools and giving our high school teachers the resources and support they need," said Alice Seagren, state education commissioner.

Seagren said the governor wants schools to increase academic rigor and offer more relevant career and technical courses. Pawlenty's budget includes $75 million in incentives for high schools that upgrade their classroom operations.

"He would like to see more students achieving at a higher level so that they can go to post-secondary education opportunities or to work better prepared than they have been in the past," Seagren said. "Because we know that they're going to be competing globally."

Pawlenty also wants to offer a cash reward of $150 per student to schools that score three stars or better on state report cards. While the governor's proposal to provide ongoing funding to high schools is getting support from some legislators, there appears to be less interest in his plan to provide one-time bonuses.

House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher of Minneapolis said she also wants to hold schools accountable, but she questioned the idea of rewarding successful schools.

"The question there is if you want to really increase improvement, you need to be helping those schools that are struggling as well," Kelliher said. "And so that's where we have some differences about how exactly to deliver that."

The governor's budget plan also includes bonuses for higher education. The University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system could each earn an extra $25 million in one-time money by meeting performance standards.

University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks welcomes the challenge.

"I do agree with the governor that our public systems ought to achieve results," Bruininks said. "We ought to be clear about what we're trying to accomplish. We ought to set out to achieve measurable goals and we ought to share them with the public. And that's very much part of the culture of the University of Minnesota. I don't have any particular problem with it. And it's moving our conversation in the right direction."

But Bruininks also said performance bonuses are not a good strategy for funding the university. He offered a harsher assessment of the plan during a recent Senate committee hearing. Bruininks told lawmakers that successful performance comes through long-term investment, not one-time funding.

The chairwoman of the Senate higher education committee, DFL Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, also questioned the impact of a performance bonus.

"What can they do with it?," Pappas asked. "They can fix up some buildings, they can probably buy a few computers. But one-time money is not that helpful in higher education unless it's for construction of something."

Committees in the House and Senate will consider the governor's performance funding proposals in the coming weeks as as they assemble their education finance bills.

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