De-Glitched Teacher Pay Bill Sprints to Senate Floor

One-year contracts for new hires, teacher ratings based on students' progress  

BY: GRAY ROHRER   

A bill that would tie teachers' pay to their students' learning progress breezed through the Senate Budget Committee Wednesday, and is being fast-tracked to be taken up during the first days of the legislative session next month.

The bill would eliminate tenure for teachers hired after July 1, and establishes one-year contracts for teachers brought on board after that date. Teachers will be rated on the progress of their students in their classrooms over the course of three years, with those deemed "highly effective" or "effective" receiving raises. Those who receive two "unsatisfactory" evaluations in a three-year period or three "needs improvement" evaluations in a five-year period would not be offered another contract.

Senators voted down an amendment offered by Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, which would have extended the length of the contract to three years, which he claimed would give teachers more security. Education reformers disagree completely. They say one-year contracts are needed to ensure accountability and weed out ineffective teachers.

"It gives me great concern and pause to have an effective teacher's contract expire at the end of the year. This is not a contract for life, but it is a recognition that the vast majority of our teachers are highly effective," Montford said.

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Florida senator's action on state education bill angers opponents

TALLAHASSEE - The debate over the successors to last year's polarizing teacher-pay bill once again turned heated Wednesday, as opponents fumed about a decision by Sen. John Thrasher to cut off debate in the measure's final Senate committee.

Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said his chamber would vote on its version of the bill during the first week of the upcoming legislative session, which begins March 8.

The bitter exchanges over the Senate Budget Committee's vote, the last hurdle standing between the measure and the Senate floor, marked a departure from what has been a notably less raucous procedure for the bill than last year's fight.

On Wednesday, the budget committee approved the bill 15-5 on an almost party-line vote, with one Democrat supporting the measure. But the vote came after the panel limited debate - under a motion offered by Thrasher, R-St. Augustine - to testimony from a handful of people largely supportive of the bill.

President Wants Private Sector To Help Promote Math, Science

ERICA WERNER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says improving math and science education is essential to helping the U.S. compete globally, and he wants the private sector to get involved in making it happen.

Obama recorded his weekly radio and Internet address during a visit this past week to Intel Corp. outside of Portland, Ore. He praised the company for making a 10-year, $200 million commitment to promote math and science education - and held it up as an example of how corporate America can make money at the same time it builds the country.

"Companies like Intel are proving that we can compete - that instead of just being a nation that buys what's made overseas, we can make things in America and sell them around the globe," Obama said. "Winning this competition depends on the ingenuity and creativity of our private sector. . But it's also going to depend on what we do as a nation to make America the best place on earth to do business."

The truth on education: U.S. was never No. 1

"U.S. students, who once led the world, currently rank 21st in the world in science and 25th in math," Newsweek reported this fall. I hear that a lot. Politicians and business leaders often bemoan the decline of American education compared to the rest of the world. We are doomed, they say, unless we (fill in here the latest plan to save the country).

So I was surprised to find, in the latest report by the wonderfully contrarian Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, that the notion of America on the downward track is a myth. The data show that we have been mediocre all along, as far back as 1964. If anything, we have lately been showing some signs of improvement.

Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, says in his annual report on American Education:

"The United States never led the world. It was never No. 1 and has never been close to No. 1 on international math tests. Or on science tests, for that matter. It is more accurate to say that the United States has always trailed the world on math tests."

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