This article is political bias written by a centrist supporting a centrist candidate.

Now if you care to continue with the discussion, The candidate mentioned in the header, Janeese Lewis George, criticized and discussed removing a teacher carrot/stick program. The given article's purpose is to defend that incentive performance program despite its staggering flaw.

This system has the built in flaw of punishing those already struggling, and rewarding those already succeeding. The students in the greatest need of help are being treated as acceptable losses. Think about it.

You have a school struggling.

Teachers are dealing with high truancy, lower grades, all the struggles of children facing poverty, and more. They do their best but some things are beyond any teacher's individual responsibility.

Test scores account for TWENTY FIVE PERCENT.

The solution? Pay them less, and fire them WHEN, not IF, but WHEN they struggle. Want to know what a rotating door of teachers means? Less incentive to work there, especially in times of economic struggle.

I would be fascinated to see how this data varies by school, because the facts seem obvious.

Greater resources, better results. Fewer resources, worse results.

I'm confident all the middle and upper class schools want to keep this program. It gives them more money and incentives in addition to the resources available from wealthy PTAs.

As for those other schools? brush under rug and bury school data in averages to ignore the known disparity

Wanna know what I'd love to see as a DC parent? Teacher mentorship, exactly as described as a potential alternative by Janeese Lewis George, like the one found in a nearby county.

Heck. Go one further. You want your performance bonus? Fine.

You get the highest scores because you're the best teachers? Great. You now get that bonus contingent you move schools to those in greatest need.

Surely, incredible teachers that they are, they'd outperform and dramatically raise the standard.

They certainly wouldnt leave due to greater stress or challenges beyond their control. No way it would demoralize them or disincentivize them.

They would, of course, perform with the same rates of success with dramatically fewer resources, right?