Can financial rewards help bring about change in New Jersey’s public schools? Apparently, the Christie administration thinks so.

In the latest move to use money as an incentive, Gov. Chris Christie’s administration has added to its new school funding plan a multimillion dollar program to reward schools and districts that meet specific goals and implement targeted reforms.

Acting education commissioner Chris Cerf outlined the new “Innovation Fund” in last week’s 83-page report on school funding, which serves as the basis of Christie’s proposed system for distributing state aid to schools next year and beyond.

Under Cerf’s plan, the Innovation Fund would serve two functions.

First, it would provide dollar rewards to schools that make specific achievement gains, such as the largest improvement in fourth-grade reading scores for low-income students or the biggest jump in graduation rates.

Second, it would serve as the central pool of funds for a competitive grant process. Schools would apply for specific projects and programs that meet the Christie administration’s reform agenda for raising achievement, including greater teacher accountability or strategies for helping the very lowest-performing schools.

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