By James Call
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-957249.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – The Republican controlled Florida Senate Thursday approved a teacher merit pay bill. James Call reports it eliminates tenure and puts public school teachers on one-year contracts.
The bill passed the Senate mostly along party lines with one Democrat voting in support and one Republican voting no. The proposal by Senator Steve Wise would tie half a teacher's evaluation to student performance, but unlike last year's bill vetoed by then Governor Charlie Crist allows consideration of student's attendance and disciplinary problems.
"I will just tell you that this bill ought to be a teacher's dream. To be able to get paid for student success. Not how they did on FCAT but on the progress the student made."
Teachers would no longer be offered multi-year contracts. The bill ends the practice of basing layoff decisions on seniority and provides local school boards some leeway in determining how teachers are evaluated. The uncertainty of whether contracts will be renewed makes educators nervous. They worry about office politics and nepotism affecting their careers. Beth Weatherstone teaches 8th graders algebra in Vero Beach.
"The change is at this point I know I will continue to work as long as I had on an evaluation that is effective. But with this bill at the end of each year if I am effective, highly effective or not I don't know if I will offered a contract for the next year. That is what is different."
Supporters of the proposal railed against what they considered the current system's life-time employment guarantee for teachers. Opponents having failed to keep alive multi-year contracts focused on a lack of money to establish an evaluation system.
"I think I can speak on behalf of superintendents and I think I can speak on behalf of teachers and others in the school district."
Tallahassee Senator Bill Montford has been a teacher, principal and district superintendent. He opposed the bill, fearing it doesn't have the funding to be successfully implemented.
"You are talking about end of course exams. Those are exceptionally expensive. And everything does not revolve around money. But we're building a system. An evaluation system. A performance pay system. That is based on end of course exams of which we do not have at this point. To the degree that we need."
Senator Paul Dockery was the lone Republican to vote against the measure. She had raised the same concerns as Montford. But Supporters said, Florida needs to change the way it educates its children. Despite the public school system earning a Top 5 national ranking, Senator Wise said there are glaring deficiencies that need to be addressed.
"The dirty little secret that we don't talk about is where are the black boys. Where are the black boys? And when I sat on the graduate podium at the college where I was a vice president and we use to count the number of black men who crossed the line of graduation there was never more than 10. And there were hundreds of hundreds of black females. Where were the boys? We're the second lowest graduation rate in America for black boys. New York is worst than we are. We have 7 of the 10 worst school districts of America on the graduation of black boys. We've kept it a secret."
Orlando Senator Gary Siplin was the lone Democratic vote. He had arranged a meeting between Wise and educators in his district to discuss the proposal.
"You got to have a school system with teachers, administrators, counselors and making sure that every segment of the student body matriculates and learn. And you got to make sure that the black boys are included in that process. Right now there are some 100,000 kids who repeated FCAT three or more times costing us a billion , 1.2-billion dollars. And that's a problem that is money that could be going to something else."
The bill would grandfather in current teacher pay plans, but set up a new merit-based plan for teachers hired after July 1, 2014. The bill passed 26 -12 and was sent to the House which has it on the agenda for two sessions next week.