Legislators in Florida 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 for teachers that must be renewed every year and continuing contracts for teachers after year three, at which point it鈥檚 harder to dismiss teachers. The bill would put all teachers on annual contracts and, after a teacher鈥檚 fifth year in the district, would award such contracts only to teachers in the top two performance tiers.
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鈥檚 current assessment programs.
The Florida Education Association, a merged AFT/NEA affiliate, is preparing to fight the proposal tooth and nail, and it鈥檚 really no wonder: This bill has practically all of NEA鈥檚 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 to be wary of the focus on test scores, but the quotes from the unions in a lot of the local news coverage don鈥檛 mention them.
Instead, the unions are claiming that the bill 鈥渨ill 鈥� (surely that phrase should be the next candidate for notoriety) and that the bill would base pay , another NEA when it appears that such judgments would be based on growth over time.
The state鈥檚 school boards association isn鈥檛 happy either, the Orlando Sentinal , saying that the bill would basically impose unfunded mandates on districts and might even contravene existing tax law.
In any case, history tells us this bill isn鈥檛 going to be an easy sell. Scholar Patrick McGuinn put out a not too long ago that deals with the challenges of tenure reform. In it, he notes that the last time the Florida legislature tried to tackle teacher tenure, it actually ended up strengthening some elements of the tenure law. Oops.