Florida Advances Bill on Tenure and Pay Reform
Legislators in Florida have advanced a bill that, if passed, would make aggressive changes to tenure law and would shift the entire state away from teacher pay based on credentials and longevity.
Rather than a formal tenure law, the state has a rather odd distinction between annual contracts that must be renewed every year and continuing contracts for teachers after year three, at which point it's harder to dismiss them. The bill would push back the granting of continuing contracts until a teacher had been with the district for five years, and even then only those teachers in the top performance tiers would receive them.
It would also require all districts to set up performance-pay plans by 2014, prohibit them from compensating teachers using longevity and advanced degrees, and would dock the state aid of districts that failed to set up such plans, forcing them to make up the difference through local tax levies. The bill would require new tests for students to be developed in subjects not covered by the state's current assessment programs.
The Florida Education Association, a merged AFT/NEA affiliate, is preparing to fight the proposal tooth and nail, and it's really no wonder: This bill has practically all of NEA's least favorite elements in it, including differential pay for math and science teachers, pay based largely on student scores, and much-weakened teacher protections.
Interestingly, there are certainly some good reasons to be wary of the focus on