“An opportunity to elevate our greatest teachers”
By admin at 26 March, 2010, 4:05 pm
Florida Education Commissioner Eric J. Smith says the "tenure bill" (SB 6) moving fast through the Legislature is an "opportunity to elevate our greatest teachers" and, despite rumors, will not result in teacher pay cuts. Here is the full statement released by his office a few minutes ago: “Today’s State Board of Education meeting offered the perfect moment to highlight the exciting direction our education system is heading in and the incredible opportunities that are on the horizon for our students, teachers and schools. In my opening comments to board members, I outlined some of the most recent successes our state has achieved and the positive movements that are underway to accelerate our academic progress and transform our education system into a model for the nation. Highlights of my comments follow: “Florida is unique in its consistency of purpose surrounding our service to our children. From our Governor and Legislature, to the work happening in individual classrooms, there is a shared commitment to producing better outcomes for our students. Our state has been blazing a trail of educational progress across our nation and we have been able to do that based on two primary factors: strong instruction by our teachers and a focused, intentional reform effort at the state level. “There are several things happening both here and in the nation that stand to make our progress even more profound. One of those is Senate Bill 6, which I refer to as the Informed Teacher Evaluation and Compensation bill. This legislation calls for us to significantly recognize and compensate our teachers for the good work they do on behalf of their students. Should the bill be signed into law, we will have three years to develop a fair and transparent system of evaluation that is built through collaboration and input from educators. Half of this evaluation would be based on the learning gains of a teacher’s students and the other half on valuable and informed observations of that teacher’s work in the classroom. This is not a bonus program and it is certainly not a pay cut for teachers. Instead, this
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"An opportunity to elevate our greatest teachers"
I’m a current law student and former high school teacher. I just read HB 7189 and would like to share some lesser known (but very dangerous) aspects of the bill.
Little Known Aspects of HB 7189
-Won’t be able to attract teachers from other states because they will have the starting pay of a brand new teacher. Teachers from other states will be labeled “beginning teacher” and will get the same starting pay grade as brand new teachers. Imagine telling a 20 year veteran teacher from New York that her starting salary is $32,000! This will only exacerbate the problem of finding good teachers. Additionally, teachers from other states won’t want to move here because of the other general provisions of this bill.
-Restricts the teachers who can teach reading math, science and other critical shortage areas. Must be certified in the area, and cannot even teach out of field temporarily while getting certification in an area. While this *might* be a good idea in math or science, it will make it even more difficult to have enough reading teachers. For example, a principal can no longer assign a English teacher to teach reading , even temporarily, while getting a teacher is getting the additional reading certification.
-Teacher cannot be rehired if students don’t make gains in only 2 of 5 years! If, for some reason a teacher’s student don’t do well enough on a standardized test, the teacher cannot be rehired, no matter how good of a teacher he/she may be. We will lose some good teachers over this. This will make good teachers much less likely to teach high risk students.
-Makes it harder to get rid of bad teachers in first three years. The bill grants tenure protection to all new teachers, meaning that all new teachers may only be removed for “just cause” – which is really hard to do (gross incompetence, felonies, etc.)
-Reduced incentives for administrators. ALL administrators and non-instructional teachers will have 50% of their pay determined by others, the AVERAGE gains of the entire school! This also goes against the entire concept of incentives. What incentive does a non-instructional teacher have to do better, when his pay is affected by how well *OTHER* students do in *OTHER* classrooms do on average!
-Bill contradicts itself on National Board Certification. In one area of the bill it requires that school cannot consider National Board Certification in teacher pay, but then also leaves intact the Dale Hickam Excellent Teaching Program, which gives teachers a 10% bonus for completing National Board Certification. This bill is poorly drafted and poorly thought out.
-Schools are forbidden from financially recognizing a teacher of the year! We’ve heard a lot about how teachers cannot be recognized for years of service, National Board Certification or graduate degrees. Additionally, school boards are expressly forbidden from providing incentive pay to state or local teachers of the year! Talk about perverse incentives!
-Teacher retention must be based on standardized testing. If school boards have to cut back on teachers, (as many have had to do because of budget cuts) the board must base their decisions primarily on standardized tests scores. Of course, seniority is out the window, but note something even more pernicious–the school board has to ignore its own need for teachers in certain subject areas in the face of standardized test scores. For example, what if a school board has to let go of 10% of its teachers. Let’s say that students in math, ESOL or reading on average make less gains per year. Well, then the school board would be forced to let go all the teachers in that critical need subject area who are performing less on standardized tests, while other subject areas have a relevant surplus of teachers. This is just plain bad policy.