The Florida Senate approved a major change to how public school teachers are paid on Thursday, amid questions from the statewide teachers’ union and Democratic legislators as to how the financially beleaguered state could afford to develop the new tests and pay increases the bill promises.
After nearly two hours of debate, the Florida Senate voted to approve Senate Bill 736, a measure that establishes a system in which 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation is based on student test scores. The long-standing tradition of basing salary on seniority also ends, with new teachers working under one-year contracts.
The 26-12 vote came mostly down party lines. An attempt to amend it to take into account socioeconomic status of students when evaluating teachers was defeated.
Republicans in the Legislature tout the bill as a way to incentivize educators to do a better job and allow school districts to more easily fire bad teachers.
Sen. Bill Montford, a Democrat from Tallahassee who was a school superintendent, said many school supervisors approve of the bill. But he said similar attempts at merit pay have failed in the past.
“What concerns me the most is how we are going to fund this initiative,” Montford said. “I’m afraid it will collapse under its own weight because of funding.” School districts statewide are facing cuts in spending. Gov. Rick Scott’s proposed budget spends $16.5 billion on K-12 education, which cuts per-student spending by $703 to $6,196.
One of two Republicans who voted against the proposed merit pay system, Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, also said she doesn’t believe the state will end up finding the money.
“My major concern is we have not paid for this program,” Dockery said. “Some people estimate it will cost $2 billion, but we don’t know how much it will cost to implement it.”
The bill sponsor, Sen. Stephen Wise, R-Jacksonville, said some of the cost would come from the federal Race to the Top grant that Florida received.
The other Republican who opposed the measure was Sen. Dennis Jones of Treasure Island.
The measure’s quick passage was widely expected. A similar bill was approved by the Legislature last year and vetoed by then-Gov. Charlie Crist after thousands of teachers called and wrote to object. This year the bill was changed slightly, giving school districts more control over how teachers are evaluated.
Florida Department of Education Commissioner Eric Smith said in a statement he was pleased about the bill’s progress in the Senate. He called it “groundbreaking legislation” that requires a “fair and accurate evaluation of our teachers that links their performance to the academic achievement of their students.”
A similar measure (HB 7019) also progressed quickly Thursday in the Florida House of Representatives.
The House Education Committee approved HB 7019 in a 12-6 vote after nearly four hours of testimony and debate.
Like its Senate companion, the House bill does away with traditional teacher tenure for new employees and ties teachers pay more closely to student performance. “Excellent teachers know they don’t need tenure,” said Rep. Marti Coley, R-Marianna. “Excellent teachers don’t fear this bill.”
Republicans on the panel rejected a series of Democratic amendments to bolster protections for highly effective teachers by requiring their retention or giving a specific reason for their dismissal. Another unsuccessful amendment based a portion of a teacher’s evaluation on a student’s portfolio of work throughout the year.
Rep. Dwight Bullard, D-Miami, said without the amendments, the bill puts teachers in the position of being without a contract at the end of each year, a lack of job security that will make it harder to recruit good teachers to the state and make even effective teachers vulnerable to the whims of their bosses.
“What this bill does now is allows you to be dismissed with no justification at the end of your year, not based on the performance of your students, not based on how effectively you teach, but simply based on the fact that the year is done,” Bullard said.
By Lilly rockwell
The News Service of Florida
News Service of Florida reporter Michael Peltier contributed to this report
