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Will contracts make schools excellent?

   One big accomplishment of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, back in the days when he was still seen as a steamroller, was to fundamentally change the school aid system. Not only did he engineer a record increase in school funding, $1.8 billion, but a new distribution formula, with most of the additional aid directed toward the poorer urban districts that need it most: those with the weakest tax bases and hardest-to-educate children. Basic fairness, and a court order, demanded such a change.
   At the same time — for the first time with state aid — there will be strings attached to the extra money in the form of so-called Contracts for Excellence, the first 55 of which were announced yesterday. Whether they will work remains to be seen, as well as what will happen if they don’t, but this at least is a step in the direction of accountability.
   The contracts call for needy districts that receive a big boost in aid to adopt at least one proven practice or program that will improve school and student performance.
   This sounds good, but the kinds of practices and programs they are talking about are already being done in many cases, without dramatic or even conclusive results. Most of the studies on the effect of class size, for instance, show that smaller class sizes (a favorite with the teacher unions) have a marginal effect, at best. However, if the reduction is limited to classes with the most troubled students, rather than the entire school, and is dramatic enough, that could make a difference.
   Early education, such as full-day pre-k, may help at first, but as the Head Start experience shows, the gains tend to be lost after a few years. And middle school and high school restructuring, by themselves, are no guarantee of improvement; it depends what kind of changes are made.
   More than half the Contract for Excellence money will go to New York City, which was already in the midst of major reforms, thanks to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. These include breaking up mega-high schools into much smaller new schools, with themes and selective admission; hiring thousands of talented young college graduates and career changers through a Teach for America-type program; and, under a new agreement reached with the teachers union a few weeks ago, providing a form of merit pay — bonuses for teachers in schools that improve test scores.
   Few districts are likely to go as far as New York City. But for the first time, schools are being asked specifically what they will do with the money they are getting to close the achievement gap. That’s progress.