Florida House Approves Ending Tenure for New Teachers

[Cetacea]

Source: New York Times

MIAMI — A bill to end tenure for new teachers and link their job security and pay to how well students perform on assessment tests cleared the Florida House of Representatives on Wednesday and now goes to the new governor, Rick Scott, a Republican who strongly supports the measure.

Taking on the teachers’ union, House Republicans used their supermajority to handily approve the legislation, which will dramatically change the way teachers in Florida are hired, fired and rewarded. This was a sharp departure from last year when a slightly tougher version of the bill prompted large demonstrations by Florida teachers and was ultimately vetoed by Mr. Scott’s predecessor, Charlie Crist, who said educators had been excluded from the process.

But Democrats on the House floor denounced the bill, saying the opposite would be true — that the measure would further demoralize Florida’s teachers, who are already among the lowest paid in the country. By tying teacher performance largely to a single student test and forcing teachers to reapply for their jobs every year, they said, the Florida Legislature was setting teachers up for failure and making the profession even less appealing.

Plus, they said, the bill comes with no money attached to develop the required tests or hand out merit raises. Once the bill becomes law, school districts will have until 2014 to develop tests. The state’s biggest standardized test, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, will be used for some grades and subjects, but districts must develop separate exams for all other subjects in each grade, an expensive undertaking.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/us/17florida.html

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There will be no Charlie Christ around to veto this time...

[Drale]

1. Florida already has one of the worst public school systems in the country

Bullshit like this is why.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. New teachers approve not working in Florida.

[onehandle]

3. If only Obama voters had gotten to the polls last November.

But no, they gave the tearacists power from coast to coast.

[forty6]

4. AMAZING how the USA has decided that the cause of their screwed up

economy, their massive debt, their imbalance of trade, their declining morality, their turning away from religion is all due to


TEACHERS!!! TEACHERS' job security is the enemy?????

If one thinks education is expensive, try ignorance, and I guess Florida is going down THAT road!!!

Jesus!!! What next?

But seriously

Instead of designing a better system for getting rid of the 1-2% teachers who are not good, let's see, they decided to screw with EVERY teacher. As if good teachers in Florida won't leave and look for work in GA, SC, or some other state, even California....

What a great way to wreck an educational system!

[Igel]

6. I've said it before.

I'll say it again.

As long as teachers, the teachers' union, education departments insist that the *teacher's* own the kids' educational outcome; as long as we have standardized tests that say that they don't measure academic achievement but teacher effectiveness; as long as we insist on blaming the teachers, the principals, the boards of education all the blame will fall on teachers.

Why?

Because the principals can simply say that teachers didn't follow instructions. The educational theorists can say that teachers didn't follow instructions. The teachers say otherwise? They get to prove they did as told. They complain that the principals are whacked? Hey, try saying that in public about your boss and see if you keep your job.

Saying that the teachers own the kids' educational outcome is great when it's asking for stuff. But after saying this for decades and not having a heck of a whole lot to show for having pretty much the highest per-pupil expenditures, on average, in the world the teachers have basically screwed themselves.

Now, it's not like the public and politicians haven't been all too happy with assisting in the self-screwing. The public and politicians were all too happy to let somebody else say, "Hey, you don't teach your kids anything, you neglect them, you can't be bothered to mentor them, you have crappy child-rearing practices and teach them that they deserve the sun and the moon for just breathing, well, just let us raise them and educate them for you--we guarantee great, data-based, research-driven results."

That's most of it. It's convenient to say that it's just 1-2% of the teachers that are bad (more than that are probably bad, but let's not ask that every teacher be above average). Those 1-2% don't account for failing schools, for not having US kids place in the top 10 for science or reading or math, etc., etc.


The judiciary has surely helped, as well. It's truly a fascinating exercise to differentiate instruction for the cognitively challenged, emotionally challenged, autistic kids (three different groups); for kids that are Limited English Proficient, at three different levels; then for the kids that are at the low, middle, and upper end of the achievement curves; while making sure that the content is culturally appropriate for the Latinos, African-Americans, Native Americans, and various other immigrant children (as well as the non-descript white kids). Yes, it means that for 22 kids you might wind up presenting things 21 different ways. Unfortunately, the 22nd kid is in on-campus suspension so she gets everything printed out for her.

[MichiganVote]

7. Its another WMD in Iraq sell job. THEY'RE the liars.

[Turbineguy]

5. Just one more thing to fix later.