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Performance pay for teachers would quadruple under bill approved by Hill
By Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Federal funding for performance pay in public schools would quadruple, to $400 million a year, under a bill moving through Congress that reflects the growing political momentum behind an education reform idea once considered anathema to many Democrats and labor leaders.
The Teacher Incentive Fund, launched during the Bush administration, has become a priority for President Obama. It has awarded more than 30 grants to school systems, states and public charter schools to develop new ways to reward top-performing teachers and principals in high-needs schools, with student test scores a significant factor but not the only one. Classroom evaluations are also considered.
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Educators Try New Ways to Spark Interest in Reading
By John Chambliss
The Ledger
LAKELAND | If students can't comprehend what they read, they can't pass the FCAT to graduate.
If they can't graduate, they can't get a decent paying job.
That's the reality facing 70 percent of Polk County's 10th-graders who couldn't read at grade level last year.
Reading teachers face myriad problems when trying to teach these students. Some students have problems pronouncing vowel sounds. Others just don't put forth the effort because they are bored.
Since the 2000-01 school year, Polk County's 10th-grade reading scores have dropped from a high of 34 percent reading at grade level to the current 30 percent. Statewide, 37 percent of 10th-graders read at grade level, a drop of 1 percentage point from 2008 but an increase of 3 percentage points from 2007.
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Fla. ties federal grant money to teacher merit pay
BY BILL KACZOR
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida is linking its application for $700 million in federal education grant money to the adoption of local merit pay plans, which have been unpopular among teachers in the past although that could be changing.
Florida Education Association spokesman Mark Pudlow said Friday that the statewide teachers union needs to study the plan Education Commissioner Eric Smith sent to school superintendents Thursday before making a decision on it.
Most teachers historically have opposed salary plans that tie their pay to student performance as measured by standardized exams such as the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT. That includes the state's optional Merit Awards Program, which is based 60 percent on tests and 40 percent on evaluations by principals.
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A decade of Gov. Jeb Bush's One Florida has seen minority college enrollment rise
By Shannon Colavecchio, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau In Print: Monday, December 14, 2009  TALLAHASSEE
A decade after Gov. Jeb Bush announced his controversial plan to end race-based university admissions, the number of minority students statewide has risen, according to a Times/Herald review of enrollment figures.
"That certainly flies in the face of those who were predicting Armageddon all those years ago," said universities chancellor Frank Brogan. He was Bush's lieutenant governor during the launch of One Florida, a plan that sparked marches and sit-ins in the Capitol and across the state.Read more |
