District Investigating if Schools Use Poor Kids for Cash

I don't know anything about principals recruiting students, but I have experience of teachers trying to keep kids out of their classrooms, or forcing kids out of their classrooms after they were placed. Usually the teachers tried to get the kids placed in another classroom in the same school rather than in another school. I can say this for certain: some educators do not feel an obligation to help the students in their care; instead, they just try to make their jobs as easy as possible by getting rid of students who require extra effort. Many teachers are lazy when it comes to helping kids who are behind. They just don't want to do it.

I also agree with those who think that sometimes a neighborhood school with less than spectacular scores is better for some children than a school with very high scores. The child is more likely to be taught an an appropriate level.


District Investigating if Schools Use Poor Kids for Cash
by Emily Alpert
Voice of San Diego
Dec. 1, 2011

Imagine this: Principals recruit poor children to come to their schools. The poor children are counted so that the schools get federal money for disadvantaged kids. Then after the money is secure, principals nudge the poor children to leave. They keep the money but drop the kid.

It's a nefarious scenario — schools using children to get money. School board member Shelia Jackson alleges that it happens in San Diego Unified. Now the school district is going to investigate.

Jackson raised her allegations Tuesday night in the middle of a school board debate about how to divide up federal money for poor children. The school board voted unanimously to start an investigation into the allegations, seeing if principals are indeed using kids to bring in cash.

Schools get a share of roughly $21 million in federal money based on their poverty rate. San Diego Unified calculates that rate from the number of families who apply for free or reduced price lunch at each school. It also uses census data to add in local families who are poor enough to apply but didn't...