Yesterday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that in order to help struggling schools, the federal government will use stimulus funding to encourage states to expand school days, reward good teachers, fire bad ones and measure how students perform compared with peers in India and China.

“D.C. has had more money than God for a long time, but the outcomes are still disastrous,” Duncan said in an interview with Washington Post editors and reporters. He said the unprecedented influx of cash, which will begin to flow in the next 30 to 45 days, would target states, local school systems and nonprofit organizations willing to adopt policies that have been proven to work.

The stimulus law, which will channel about $100 billion to public schools, universities and early childhood education programs nationwide, will help prevent teacher layoffs, overhaul aging schools and educate low-income children. But it also gives Duncan unusual power to shape change. He outlined several areas in which he seeks to accomplish this:

• Have struggling schools use federal aid to adopt on a grander scale ideas that are producing results on a trial basis in some locales. He pointed to longer school days as essential to help at-risk students make up lost ground.
• Treat schools as community hubs that provide health care, meals and other services to support at-risk families. Some schools in Chicago, for example, are open up to 14 hours a day and offer services from YMCAs to health clinics.
• Encourage states to adopt achievement standards that give a clear picture of whether U.S. students are prepared to compete with global peers. And the funding will help states create better tests to show whether students are on track for college.
• Support performance pay to reward good teaching, individually and schoolwide. Beyond standardized test scores, Duncan mentioned classroom observation, parent and student surveys, and attendance as ways to help rate teacher effectiveness.