Conservative pans Florida's merit pay program for teachers.

[Orlandodem]

Just another to come along and say what we already know.


Florida's Senate Bill 736: With "Wins" Like These...

Recently, I wrote about how turning reasonable discussions about issues like teacher evaluation and pay into polarizing moral crusades yields "reform" victories that amount to self-defeating, ham-handed mandates. The most recent example is the troubling, recently-enacted Florida Senate Bill 736.

As you may recall, last April, the Florida legislature passed Senate Bill 6, a serious effort to rethink teacher tenure, evaluation, and pay that then-Governor Charlie Crist ultimately vetoed. Despite my manifold reservations, I supported SB 6. I feared then that the bill's proponents were too eager to base teacher performance on highly imperfect and not-yet-existent value-added metrics, and was concerned about problems with cementing these test-based measures and the implied staffing arrangements into statute. Yet, despite the bill's flaws, I thought it would knock down anachronistic policies governing tenure and pay--and problems with overreach and excessive prescriptiveness could be addressed later (you know, the same argument that President Obama offered regarding health care reform). However, a year passed, proponents had a chance to reflect and reconsider, and there's no evidence that they improved their handiwork in any substantial way.

The rest here....

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2011/04/floridas_senate_bill_736_with_wins_like_these.html