Fla. bill requires teacher merit pay or funding cuts

TALLAHASSEE — The sponsor calls it a “hammer.” The head of Florida’s statewide teachers union says it’s more like a “nuclear weapon.”

It’s a provision in a wide-ranging teacher quality bill penalizing school districts that fail to adopt merit pay plans by cutting part of their state funding and forcing them to make up for it by increasing local property taxes.

The bill (SB 6) sponsored by Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, also would reduce teacher job protection and make it easier for school officials to fire teachers. The legislation has drawn union opposition.

Thrasher, who also chairs the Florida Republican Party, said Monday that his bill needs the penalty provision as an incentive for districts to adopt performance pay plans.

The bill says performance evaluations must be based at least half on how well a teacher’s students do on standardized tests rather than on longevity, advanced academic degrees or other factors. The evaluations determine which teachers get merit pay and who gets fired for being ineffective.

“There has to be a clear incentive to accomplish this,” Thrasher said. “Otherwise, we’re going to continue to not get it done.”

Merit pay is based on the premise that it attracts good teachers to the classroom and keeps them there,

Pat Barber, Manatee County Education Association president, is hoping the bill dies.

“I think it’s disgraceful,” she said Monday. “It will keep teachers from being willing to work in low-performing schools, because they’ll be afraid if their students don’t achieve that their salary will be cut. It’s very sad that Florida has the ability to fund public education but refuses to do so.”

Barber also said the move undermines collective bargaining and would take away local control from school boards.

Manatee County schools Superintendent Tim McGonegal agreed.

“Anything that takes away local control from our five elected school board members I don’t think is a good thing.

The Legislature doesn’t give us the ability to do away with tenure, they require it,” McGonegal said. “If they were going to do anything, we’d like them to enable the local school board to set the policy on tenure and the local voters will hold them accountable.”

Florida Education Association President Andy Ford also said the penalty clause goes too far.

“I actually don’t think it’s a hammer,” Ford said at a news conference. “It’s more like a nuclear weapon.”

The union says basing assessments on a single test fails to accurately identify the best teachers. It also says competing for merit pay undermines teamwork, and rewarding just a few teachers is unfair because most are doing good work and all are underpaid.

Various merit pay plans have been attempted in Florida over the past three decades, without much success.

Only eight of Florida’s 67 school districts participate in the current Merit Awards Program.