I was left confused by The Charlotte Observer’s lukewarm praise for a modest bonus plan aimed at enticing experienced teachers into Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s neediest schools. The Observer seems to regard the bonus idea as a half-way measure that falls short of the desired solution of simply assigning the best teachers to the worst schools. But the teach or else plan — if it can be called one — is a recipe for disaster.

There is little doubt that were CMS to start assigning good teachers to bad schools on a Monday, by Wednesday those teachers would be working in neighboring school districts, at private schools, in different professions, or just retire. People do not simply sit back and take a radical change in their working conditions; they re-evaluate their options and react.

No, the bottomline is that CMS must come across with serious bonus money — at least $5,000 a year, and even then CMS teachers tell me that might not be enough — to compensate teachers who agree to take on the toughest tasks. And the only way to get that kind of money is whack away at the deadwood that draws salaries at the bloated district HQ without ever setting root in a classroom.

Better yet, assign them to the worst CMS schools and let the natural attrition do the rest.