So now STAR is scrapped for MAP. Big whoop.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Senate passes replacement for ‘flawed’ teacher merit pay plan
By BILL KACZOR
Associated Press Writer

Confrontation and acrimony over performance pay for teachers that has distracted school districts for more than a year neared an end Wednesday when the Senate passed a bill to repeal and replace Florida’s existing program.

The bill (SB 1226) would do away with the Special Teachers are Rewarded, or STAR, program the Legislature passed last year. Instead, it would create the Merit Awards Program that will give local unions and school districts more flexibility in developing performance pay plans tailored to their needs.

“This gets closer to what we believe would be a true workable compensation reward system,” said Florida Education Association president Andy Ford, whose union includes locals across the state. “The STAR program has really torn school districts apart.”

Critics complained STAR has been too rigid, puts too much reliance on standardized student tests to determine which teachers would get bonuses and gave districts too little time to develop local plans. Teachers and their unions filed administrative and legal challenges, and some districts refused to participate even thought it would cost them millions of state dollars allocated for the bonuses.

A 39-0 roll call sent the compromise legislation to the House for a final vote scheduled Thursday. It is supported by House leaders, the statewide teachers union and associations representing school boards and superintendents.

Ford said bill should remove a wedge that STAR has placed between school boards and unions. That could have been avoided if lawmakers and other state officials, including former Gov. Jeb Bush, had seriously considered what teachers and their unions were saying before STAR passed, Ford said…

Man, I wish we could fit that on t-shirts!!

Oprah and Dr. Phil — a combo in whom most politicians might find something palatable for one reason or another? — counsel that “we teach people how to treat us.” I think in the case of teachers and especially teacher lobbying and politics, this is quite literally true.

The real question then, is how (whether?) today’s teachers can un-learn yesterday’s teacher leadership and politics, and dare to imagine some whole different answers.

I personally remember at least three major “merit-go-rounds” in Florida, and was myself actively lobbying for public education during one of them. In any decade teachers oppose performance pay not because they just want a different formula that is “fairer” etc etc — it’s because they’ve been taught (and continue to teach all of us) that all differentiated pay is “divisive” and the school system is out to screw everybody without a strong union to make things right.

Hmmm - but kids will never have a union, guess they’re SOL. Is it any wonder the public is finally learning public school is not “for” the public’s kids?

(What kind of peculiarly American lesson this is for teachers to be paid to teach, is for another discussion. Despite his defiant leadership of the ‘68 walkout, for example, it turns out Pat Tornillo was a big fan of special compensation for special performance, for himself anyway. After completing his prison time, he told the newspapers he still believed everything he did was for the kids.)

So I’ve stopped listening to the details of any particular pay proposal or working conditions platform, or the specific objections to same, because there is no possible right answer.

I’m reasonably bright and I’ve had effective teachers all my life in Florida public education and legislative work. I’ve learned that it’s a trick question. I suggest the lesson IS the box.

Oh! You bring up a great thought experiment - what if unschooled kids became the next generation of schoolteachers, for their own follow-the-bliss reasons, all in one fell swoop?

What would schools look like and feel like then? What different lessons would be “taught” and learned? How far down the priority list would pay and conditions drop and what would become number one?

Could it plausibly happen at all, and if so, what could be the precipitating circumstances? If not, maybe we could learn something useful from examining THAT . . .