In these troubled economic times, it would take a lot for a school district to turn down a gift of $2.5 million. But that’s just what the Oregon City School District [1] has done, the Washington Post reports. The 8,100-student district was part of a group of school systems and a non-profit organization that applied to the federal government for a federal grant through the “Teacher Incentive Fund [2].” That fund awards money to districts that agree to implement performance-based compensation systems in high-needs schools for teachers and principals that include the use of standardized test scores and merit pay…