I may have to become a democrat...

Now I know I'll be preaching to the choir here, since most of you are teachers, but I figure some of you may not have heard about this debacle yet. Florida's Republican legislature just passed a horrid bill that is currently waiting for the governor's signature. This article is quite biased but it gives a good overview.

Senate Bill 6 would:
*Require that school systems evaluate and pay teachers primarily on the basis of student test scores. Testing experts say this is an invalid assessment tool.

*Require that experience, advanced degrees or professional certification not be considered when paying teachers.

*Require that new teachers be put on probation for five years and then work on one-year contracts, which would allow any principal to easily get rid of any teacher who bothered them in any way.

*Require the creation of new annual tests for every subject that is not measured already by state assessments or other tests, such as the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate end-of-course tests.

But it is Florida; why should I care? This is the direction our country is headed with education! Obama got a lot of teachers on board by saying he'd overhaul No Child Left Behind. Well, he's doing it. Have you heard of Race to the Top? Basically, he wants states to support charter schools and he wants teachers' salaries based on test scores. So it is NCLB but instead of schools failing, we as teachers will fail.

Now before anyone thinks this is just sour grapes: My test scores rock. I teach at a school that has parental support, is middle class, and does not have a lot of ESL students (not that there is anything wrong with them; they just have a harder time passing CRTs). I would probably get a raise, depending on the system. But it will destroy the public education system! Who is going to teach in a poor school? Who is going to teach ESL or resource kids? Why would anyone teach, period?

The profession is so looked down upon it makes me want to cry. Yes, there are bad teachers. But that is not the fault of other teachers. It is the fault of cowardly administrators who are too lazy to use the termination processes that are already in place. Get rid of the crappy teachers everyone (teachers, parents, kids) knows exist.

I will be all for merit pay when two things happen. One, individual children are tracked year to year. Did Johnny make a year's worth of progress? If he started fourth grade on a second grade level and I got him up to 3rd, then he made a year's progress. No, he's not on grade level yet but I did my job. Don't punish Johnny or me when we both did our job in 4th grade. (Don't get me started on inflated grades and social promotion!)

Two, teachers do not all receive the same "input." Everyone is comparing teaching to a business. In a factory, I'm required to produce a set product, say a tv. All the components I am provided must meet certain requirements before they come to me. I must have a working machine and the appropriate materials or my "output," the tv, will not be acceptable.

In the teaching field, my "input," the student, is never consistent. I get many children that start fourth grade below grade level. According to these new requirements, that doesn't matter. I still have to have every child on the fourth grade level by the end of the year. It doesn't matter what I start with!

I'm am very lucky to teach in a "normal" school. Most kids are on grade level or close to it, most have supportive parents, and most still care about school. But I am still shocked by some of the "input" I get. In four years with fourth grade I've had: a resource girl score a 9% on a CRT test (you could guess all A and do better), a parent show up for an IEP high as a kite, a boy who had been in the country for one year and didn't know the language or how to behave in a classroom, a home schooled child who was many years behind, kids with rotten teeth from no dental care, parents who go a whole year without ever meeting me, a parent (who hates me) who referred to his son as the "dumb one," should I go on?

Yes, give us merit pay and watch our public education system go down the drain. Rant over for tonight.