Florida is about to embark on yet another grand experiment with its state's education system. It's commonly known as Senate Bill 6 and also referred to as the "Teacher Tenure Bill".
It has passed both the Florida State Senate and State House of Representatives. Now it has been passed to the governor for his signature or veto.
I'm really shocked and disappointed that the debate surrounding this legislation has not been covered very much by the national news media. Of course I realize the big story this week has been Tiger Woods return to the Masters Golf Tournament, and we all know that celebrity news is always more newsworthy than education issues.
In a nutshell, this legislation cannot be explained in a nutshell. Supposedly it installs a merit pay system for teachers, but the "merit" pay will be based on standardized test scores as the predominant measure of a teacher's "effectiveness". But it also eliminates any kind of tenure or due process for new teachers and calls for the termination of the teaching certificate of a teacher that is deemed ineffective (based on standardized test scores) in 4 of the preceding 5 years.
Furthermore, it ignores the fact that teachers only get better as they become more experienced; the bill places them on annual contracts and prohibits recognition for years of service, advanced degrees or becoming nationally board certified.
In addition, school districts will be required to create standardized tests for courses that do not currently have them. The creation of these new tests alone will cost the Dade County School District millions of dollars for example. To add insult to injury, these costs must be absorbed by the local school districts without any new funding support from the state.
Of course educators in Florida were excluded from any discussion in the drafting of this legislation. But then why should they have been included? The federal government does not really seek the input of experienced educators who work daily "in the trenches" of our nation's classrooms.
Instead we have "experts" like at "Education Next" who maintains that "Florida legislators recognize that teacher quality is central to student outcomes. They also recognize that neither teacher experience nor graduate degrees bear any consistent relationship to student achievement. This legislation is simply putting policy where the evidence is."
Oops! It seems that Mr. Hanushek missed the report from researchers at the University of North Carolina that discovered "rookie teachers are much less effective than their more experienced colleagues". The same report goes on to say:
The study looked at student scores on end-of-grade and end-of-course tests and connected that information to their teachers, how long they'd been teaching and where they learned to teach. The focus was on teachers with less than five years experience. All school districts were included.
Rookie teachers are less effective in nine out of 11 measures. Elementary school math students in inexperienced teachers' classrooms lose the equivalent of 21 days of school, and middle school math students lose the equivalent of 47 days of school.
Upon a quick investigation of "Education Next" I discovered of the 16 people that make up its editorial staff, only a couple have any teaching experience in elementary or secondary schools. Mr. Hanushek background is that of an economist, and the editor-in-chief, Paul E. Peterson, has a background in political science.
In addition, Mr. Paul E. Peterson's latest book is titled: "Saving Schools: From Horace Mann to Virtual Learning". In his book, Mr. Peterson explains "we need fewer teachers, not more, and those few teachers must reach thousands of students at a time".
I'll pause a moment here for everyone who has fallen out of their chair after reading that comment from Mr. Peterson.
It is sad that our nation has such a wealth of great, experienced teachers whose input is rarely considered when developing these grand experiments otherwise known as education reform. It is really sad that our politicians instead rely on the opinions of "experts" who really don't seem to have a clue about education reform.
The stakes are high for the future of students and teachers in Florida. I fear if this legislation is signed into law by their governor, it could be disastrous not only for the schools in Florida, but for schools across the entire nation.
4 comments:
Nice summary and reflection. Good read.
Frank Miracola
It's always odd how so many people comment that experience doesn't matter. I guess that means that everyone should be fired from their job after two years so that someone cheaper can be hired. I'm sure a pilot or detective with two years experience is just as good as one with 25 years. I'm sure the researcher that wrote the study could be replaced by a brand new "scholar", since their experience means nothing. Whether the person is a truck driver, surgeon, teacher, or chef, there is a lot of value in the experience gained by doing the job.
Florida teachers... Are you lions or lambs? Fight, fight, fight. MI is behind you!
Education seems to be getting more business- and politics-oriented every year. I hear time and time again how schools would be so much better if they were run like a business or that they need to have this or that, both being unreasonable or illogical. But of everything I've heard, this really takes the cake. To advocate teacher quality while condemning experience and even education itself, and, further still, levy costs that will reduce education resources, is probably the most ludicrous thing I've heard in a while, even within politics. Education seems to be the best example of an area where organizations of broader oversight need to be more careful in their reforms, and clean up what's dirty rather than scrubbing the whole floor.
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