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Teacher Seniority Rules Challenged
With Tens of Thousands of Layoffs Looming, Government Officials and Parents Want to Change the 'Last in, First out' System
By BARBARA MARTINEZ
Teacher seniority rules are meeting resistance from government officials and parents as a wave of layoffs is hitting public schools and driving newer teachers out of classrooms.
In a majority of the country's school districts, teacher layoffs are handled on a "last in, first out" basis. Critics of seniority rules worry that many effective and talented teachers who have been hired in recent years will lose their jobs.
Unions say that seniority rules are the only objective way to carry out layoffs, and that they protect teachers from the whims and bias of managers, who might fire effective teachers they don't like.
This year, because of cuts in state aid to New York City, the city could be facing a loss of about 8,500 teacher jobs out of a total of 80,000. The last time the nation's largest school system laid off a teacher was 1976.
If New York City is forced to lay off some of the more than 30,000 new teachers it has hired in the past five years, it is "going to be catastrophic," said Joel Klein, chancellor of the city's school system. "We're going to be losing a lot of great new teachers that we hired" in recent years, the chancellor said.
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Teacher merit-pay plan passes key Florida Senate committee
A sweeping and controversial plan to overhaul how teachers are evaluated and paid got a first favorable vote in a key state Senate committee Wednesday.
The bill (SB 6) would jettison the current practice of giving teachers raises for years worked and degrees earned. In its place, a merit-pay plan would use student "learning gains" - as measured in large part by standardized tests - to judge teacher quality.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, also would pay teachers more if they worked in "high need" schools or taught subjects for which teachers are hard to find - such as chemistry or physics.
Thrasher, the new leader of the Republican Party of Florida, said the plan would boost teacher quality because it is a system "that rewards teachers for their hard work."
"It is about teachers, but ultimately it's about students. It's about making sure every student has the best and brightest teacher we can find for them in their classroom," he said.
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SENATE PANEL APPROVES SCHOOL OVERHAUL BILLS
By KATHLEEN HAUGHNEY
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA
THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, March 10, 2010..... A Senate panel approved on Wednesday a package of bills that would overhaul Florida's public education system, creating a system of merit pay for teachers and increasing the amount of math and science a student needs to pass to graduate.
"It's a Nixon goes to China type of thing," said Sen. John Thrasher, R- St. Augustine, who is sponsoring the teacher merit pay legislation. "It's a major move, and there's nothing wrong with that. If anyone believes the status quo in education is OK then they've got their head in the sand."
The merit pay bill, SB 6, would throw the status quo out the window, tying teacher pay to how well their students perform on standardized exams and putting teachers on annual contracts. And if schools don't participate in a merit pay system, then the state will hold back funding, making it likely the school board would have to levy a tax on local residents to compensate for the lost dollars.
The bill, a pet proposal of the Jeb Bush-based Foundation for Florida's Future, won easy passage through the Senate Education Pre-K-12 Committee Wednesday, passing on a party line vote of 6-2. But Democrats and the Florida Education Association, which backed Bush's 2002 gubernatorial rival, have begun a full scale offensive against the legislation.
Supporters say it will root out ineffective teachers and create better learning gains among students. But opponents argue the legislation could do more harm than good. Sen. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, said that the bill doesn't take into consideration students who come from different backgrounds or have families that may not be supportive of their child's school work.
"We have to remember that education is a evolving process and our children come to us with many experiences," Wilson said. "They don't all come to us from the same cookie cutter homes. And we have to take them where they are and teach them where they are."
Wayne Blanton, director of the Florida School Boards Association, told committee members that the legislation still needed a lot of work and that he was particularly troubled over the taxation penalty that will be forced upon schools if they don't enact a merit pay schedule. He also warned that it could have a devastating impact on teachers.
"This bill has done more to damage morale than anything I've seen in a long time," he said.
School boards are also grappling with the changes that could come with the heightened graduation standards bill being pushed by Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice.
Under the bill - also approved by the committee Wednesday - all would eventually have to take geometry, two years of algebra, biology, chemistry or physics and an additional "rigorous" science course. The class requirements would be phased in as would end-of-course examinations, which would eventually replace the state's current standardized exam, the FCAT.
Students would have to pass the end-of-course exams in algebra one and two, biology, and chemistry or physics as the exams are phased in to receive course credit.
Similar legislation passed the House last year, but faltered in the Senate. Detert said she believes this year will be different because the package of bills in the overhaul might give the state a leg up in its quest for the federal Race to the Top grant, which could give the state $1 billion in education funding.
Florida has been named a finalist for the federal dollars and state officials should find out in April if the state will receive the money. The major tenants of the state's application for the money call for the enactment of merit pay and stricter graduation standards.
Rocky Hanna, the principal at Leon High School in Tallahassee, said principals across the state have some concerns about the legislation, particularly how it will affect graduation rates. Hanna said Leon High School currently has an 87 percent graduation rate, but many of his students never set foot in chemistry class. He said he is worried the graduation rate could drop by as much as 30 percent.
"You can't even join the military without a high school diploma," he said.
Detert's bill, SB 4, and Thrasher's bill, SB 6, both go to the Senate Ways and Means Committee next. A House version of merit pay is expected to debut some time next week, and the House's graduation standards legislation has already passed one committee and now has stops at the Education Policy Council and the Full Appropriations Council on Education & Economic Development.
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New national math, English standards drafted
SEATTLE - Math and English instruction in the United States moved a step closer to uniform -- and more rigorous -- standards Wednesday as draft new national guidelines were released.
Supporters of the project led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers hope the lists of things kids should learn at each grade level will replace a patchwork of systems across the country.
The effort is expected to lead to standardization of textbooks and testing and make learning easier for students who move from state to state.
The federal government recently opened bidding for $350 million to work on new national tests that would be given to students in states that adopt the national standards.
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Area legislators: Class-size limits will pass Senate
By SARA KENNEDY - skennedy@bradenton.com
MANATEE - A local legislator has predicted a measure calling for easing of the state's class-size amendment will pass in the state Senate as early as next week, saying, "We're anxious to get it out."
Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Sarasota, who chairs the Florida Senate Education Pre K-12 Committee, and serves as a member of its Education Pre K-12 Appropriations Committee, said she expects a class-size measure to reach the Senate floor sometime next week.
Her colleague, Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, who at one point had proposed repeal of the class size amendment altogether, seconded Detert's assessment.
"It's the right thing to do," he said of the measure expected to emerge for a floor vote, Senate Joint Resolution 2.
The plan would freeze the size of public school classes as they are now, rather than allowing more stringent criteria to go into effect, as required by a constitutional amendment voters approved in 2002.Read more
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