We’re all for finding novel ways to motivate D.C. public school students to get good grades and go to college, but something about this story in the Examiner strikes us as odd. A group of students are lobbying the D.C. Council to revive legislation that would establish a system of cash rewards for student achievement. The bill, which as it’s currently written would provide valedictorians $3,000 apiece and students who have improved the most $1,000 each, was originally introduced over a year ago but was tabled due to a lack of funding.

Part one of why this seems weird: The image of high-achieving students arguing before the Council that they deserve cash payments for working hard. Promoting a Council-led scholarship fund for D.C. public school students would be one thing, but that the actual students who would theoretically get the cash are the ones behind the movement for the bill makes it a bit tough to see them as altruistic do-gooders. Are there actually students out there who will testify that if $1,000 was on the table, they would be getting better grades?

Part two of why this seems weird: There is no money in the 2009 D.C. budget, which has already been approved, for this program, so the timing of the push is badly miscalculated.

Part three of why this seems weird: Despite the facts that the legislation has been off the table for so long due to a lack of funds and that the newest budget also does not provide any money for it, the students are actually pressing for the concept to be expanded to include charter schools. The charter school students feel they are unfairly being left out of a program that doesn’t exist.

Now, incentives for students are a legitimate idea to look into, and perhaps there’s actually a solution to financing them, like maybe by teaming up with a corporation with local ties to provide scholarships to graduating seniors from D.C. high schools. But there are other problems, even apart from appearances, with the bill both as it’s currently written and as it’s further being proposed. How do you measure “most improved”? And couldn’t the city’s numerous charter schools manage to set up their own incentives at the level of the individual school?