FL bill forbids teachers from earning salary based on advanced degrees or credentials.

[madfloridian]

Senate Bill 6 has already passed the Florida Senate. Tomorrow the Florida House will vote on a bill that is equally punitive toward teachers. It is expected to easily pass, and Governor Crist has agreed to sign it.

Hurting teachers can't help students

From the Miami Herald.

If the proposed legislation passes, teachers' licenses, certification and jobs will no longer be based on continuing education, years of experience or professional achievement, but instead will be subject to how well students do on state tests.

Teachers who teach challenged students, non-English speaking students, the emotionally or mentally disabled, autistic students, homeless and transient children or even an average class can count on seeing their salaries frozen or cut.

Senate Bill 6 subjects teachers to firing without cause at the end of each school year. Principals will be able to fire teachers at will. If a teacher disagrees with a principal on anything -- anything at all -- that teacher can be terminated, even if her students are successful based on test scores.

Graduate degrees will have no value. Senate Bill 6 forbids teachers from earning salary based on advanced degrees or credentials. The very professionals who are to encourage, mentor and develop students to be college-ready are now told that their education credentials are worth nothing. Is that the message we want to send to our children whom we want to see go on to college?

SB 6/HB 7189 Will Be Heard on the House Floor Tomorrow

Here is more about the bill and what is contained in it.

The Bad, the Ugly and Not Much Good

Facing salary cuts, contract termination and even the loss of their teaching certification if student gains are deemed insufficient, the best teachers are unlikely to be willing to work in low-performing, high-risk schools with the students most in need of their expertise.

Here are some of the more controversial elements:

•School districts are required to base 50% of teacher's pay each year on student gains on standardized tests. But there is no special provision made for teachers with disadvantaged students, which means there is no consideration given to the large number of factors affecting student performance over which a teacher has no control (home environment, for example, which effects everything from reading ability to whether they went to bed on time and had a decent breakfast before test day). The bill also doesn't address the fact that the lowest-performing students also tend to be the most transient -- the makeup of a teacher's classroom can change as much as 80% in the course of a year. How do you decide which kids' scores affect which teacher's paycheck with that kind of turnover?

•School districts will no longer be allowed to consider teaching experience or advanced degrees in determining salary. In fact, they will face financial penalties imposed by the state if they choose to do so. If the goal is to increase teacher quality, why remove incentives for teachers to seek graduate education? And why remove incentives for experienced teachers to remain in the public schools? Critics suggest that these measures punish all teachers, especially the best, rather than just ineffective ones.

That is idiocy. That is making sure that there will be no teachers with experience or advanced degrees in any hurry to come to Florida to teach.

It is just vindictive and punitive.

More:

•Teachers will no longer have tenure and will be granted only annual, single-year contracts. They can be fired if their students' gains on standardized tests are insufficient. They can even lose their teaching certificate. Just as with salaries, the legislation makes no provision for teachers working with high-risk students.

•The bill would also eliminate programs that address regions with critical teacher shortages and that provide loan forgiveness for teachers willing to serve in low-performing schools.

So a teacher in a school in a wealthy area of town with all the niceties and amenities will be judged along side a teacher in a poorer school from which resources have been taken yearly.

And yet this topic has received little attention at all. Teachers are protesting, there is little media coverage.

As of today only 11,000 have signed the letter urging that SB 6/HB 7189 not become law.

That is not very many people protesting the bill that will turn Florida into a wasteland for teachers.