State School Superintendent Tony Bennett hands out performance grants for teaching excellence (WIBC.com video: Ray Steele)

School corporations across Indiana are sharing a new state grant designed to reward efforts to recruit and retain effective teachers.

Listen:

"It's giving out more money that will pay us dividends in the future," said State School Superintendent Tony Bennett, who divided $6 million among 28 school corporations. The grant was created by the General Assembly in 2011 as an incentive for school districts to implement new evaluation standards required by state law.

Bennett says those standards help provide more meaningful feedback to help teachers improve and give financial rewards to the best teachers, but he also says he can't take credit for the idea of the grant. "Larry Grau, who is the executive director of Democrats For Education Reform; in a conversation I had with Larry two years ago, we talked about the marriage between fiscal policy and education policy and how that would be transformative in education," Bennett said.

More than 70 school corporations applied for the grant money and Bennett says he will ask the legislature to boost the overall amount to nine (m) million dollars next year.  "The state is saying 'we want to pay for results, we want to pay for greatness, we want to pay for excellence, and we're willing to put a sum of money to do just that," Bennett said.

Among those receiving the money were Noblesville Schools, which got almost $650,000 , Zionsville Community Schools, which received more than $358,000, and KIPP Indianapolis College Preparatory School, which got more than $12,000.  "We believe that great teachers drive great student achievement," said Emily Perino from KIPP.  "We want to continue to reward, and we're very grateful that we have this opportunity from the state."

State School Superintendent Tony Bennett (WIBC.com photo: Ray Steele)

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