Every weekday I’m sharing the morning’s top education stories. Today: D.C. teachers are officially locked into a contract that offers them up to $30,000 in performance bonuses, lawmakers may cut Race to the Top funding to bail out education jobs and 14 school California school districts are edging towards bankruptcy.

• It’s official: D.C. teachers will be getting their performance pay contracts, according to The Washington Post today. The new contract includes a nearly 22 percent salary increase through 2012 for all teachers, and between $20,000 and $30,000 in bonuses for teachers who demonstrate extraordinary performance.

• Lawmakers may take money out of America’s investment in the future and use it for the present. They’re considering cuts to President Obama’s Race to the Top grant program to help fund a $10 billion education jobs bailout, The Washington Post reported today. Hawaii submitted its second bid for Race to the Top funds this summer.

• Fourteen school districts in California are in dire financial straits and on the brink of bankruptcy, according to an LA Times report today.

• University of Hawaii received a $1.8 million gift to help support graduate students in geology and geophysics, KITV reported today.

• On the “only in America” front, a young woman won a lawsuit against her dad because he wouldn’t pay for her senior year of college, NPR reported today. Sounds like she’s ready to make the most of all life’s tough lessons.

• Paul Peterson at Education Next criticized the method for a recent study that many claim shows charter schools outperforming regular public schools. The study doesn’t support the impact of charter schools so much as it does the impact of switching schools, he wrote.

• Some still hope to decentralize Hawaii’s school district into several smaller ones. But Los Angeles County school districts, feeling the pinch of budget crisis, are looking to “share the cost of some programs” (read: centralize some of its programs) as a last-ditch effort to stay afloat financially, The LA Times reported today.

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