By Lynn Hatter
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-948350.mp3
Tallahassee, Fl – A House committee heard testimony Wednesday from key education officials on what needs to happen in order to craft a teacher reform bill. The issue is being driven by an increased focus on teacher classroom performance and a federal education grant. Lynn Hatter reports.
Proposals for a bill include things like re-working the state's rules on tenure, increasing performance pay and revising the way teachers are evaluated. Florida Education Association President Andy Ford says the teacher's union has never liked the current evaluation system.
"It's not like we're trying to defend what we have, we know it doesn't work. Actually we refer to it as "drive by evaluations". The evaluation system must be developed collaboratively at the local level, because only the people at the local level know the exact criteria that they think they should use to meet the student population that they're dealing with."
Evaluations are a main part of proposals floating around. No bill has been filed yet, but draft proposals are calling for half of a teacher's evaluation to be based on how well students perform in the classroom.