The federal stimulus money that is scheduled for schools may not make it to California, where I teach. Seems as though the Feds are requiring a system to track teachers and student progress, and to couple them somehow, for some reason. Currently, we have no such system, although I believe that Jack O’Connell, our state Super of Schools, has said that we will, or maybe we do and the Feds just don’t understand what we have and how it complies with the Fed requirement.

I have written before about accountability. It can be a boost to the system and pretty good, or it can be another political opportunity for complete stupidity amongst the politicians in this state, something that is in abundance right now. Since public schools are funded by public tax money, it is reasonable for the taxpayers of this state, and all other states, to demand some accountability. They, and I am one of the “they”, have a right to expect to know how the money is spent and what the results are.

Accountability for student success in the classroom is a very difficult batch of results to measure. There are quite a few variables that are rarely, if ever, taken into account by those who think the school system is incapable of actually educating students. The hue and cry from this group is often that schools should be run just like big business is run. Here are, again, some of the variables: students come from intact families, divorced families, single parent families, loving families, completely dsyfunctional families, no families at all, violent families, absentee families; students come to school developmentally ready, developmentally out of place, well fed, hungry, clean, dirty, alert, sleep deprived, intoxicated, abused, relaxed, stressed out. This type of list can get to be quite lengthy.

According to NCLB (no child left behind), all of these children are supposed to be at grade level, at the same time, at a precise time in the near future. I am willing to be held accountable for the complete success or failure of the disparate group of Kindergartners in my room if, and only if, we adopt the Wall Street model of compensation and bonuses.

In an article in the Sacramento Bee today, July 31, compiled form the New York Times and the Los AngelesTimes, figures released by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo provide a very interesting look at how Wall Street and the banks compensate their staffs: 4,793 bankers and traders were paid more than $1million in bonuses last year. Keep in mind that profits shrank, and the biggest banks got billions of our dollars to keep them afloat. Citigroup, Bank of America (which now includes Merrill Lynch), Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase are just the tip of the iceberg of names of financial institions that passed out billions, in bonuses, last year. Here is the best part, according to Cuomo’s report: “When the banks did well, their employees were paid well. When the banks did poorly, their employees were paid well. And when the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by the taxpayers, and their employees were still paid well.”

That’s the business model I want applied to me and my teaching and the success or lack thereof of the students in my classroom. No matter what, I get paid well, with big bonuses. It’s a business model I can finally live with when applied to education.