Yep. Federal funding inevitably results in a one-size-fits-all approach, and generally has negative unintended consequences. This program will be no different; accountability is encouraged when funding comes at the local level.
thanks for the explanation although i completely understand how things are working (or not) within a school district.
now let's consider what happens across school districts but within a given state. states must now pour money into school districts that have lower performing students. generally speaking, higher performing students come from middle class and upper middle class families and these families are paying a lot of local taxes for their schools. lower performing students come from lower classes of families, and these families pay little in local school taxes. no slam against them, it is just that they are not as well off and tend to reject the only taxes that they can vote on.
the state thus puts more money in the school districts with lower performing students. the problem is that genetics is left out of the equation. smarter parents tend to have smarter children. further, in a free society, smarter people tend to make more money than less intelligent people (in general). so the state (robin hood) takes from the smart and gives to the less intelligent. however, because of genetics, the less intelligent are still going to score low on standardized tests, not because they have less money, but because they are less intelligent. no amount of money can raise a person's IQ.
(and if anyone starts a discussion about embryonic stem cell research because of my post, i will scream).