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State may link pay to FCAT
Education officials want to use student scores to rank teachers for bonuses. The teachers union has cried foul.
By RON MATUS
Published February 11, 2006
State education officials unveiled plans Friday to use student scores from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test to rank teachers, then force districts to dole out millions of dollars in bonuses to those in the top 10 percent.
The Department of Education says its aim is to recruit and retain the best teachers, something made even more critical by the 2002 constitutional amendment to reduce class sizes.
Supporters called it the most ambitious merit-pay plan in the country.
"This is going to be a huge change in the rules of the game," said Education Commissioner John Winn.
Under the plan, the top 10 percent of teachers would earn bonuses equal to 5 percent of their base salary. For a teacher making $40,000 a year - close to the state average - that comes to $2,000.
The plan is likely to result in more standardized testing for Florida students and put more pressure on Florida's 180,000 teachers to drive up test scores.
It also drew an immediate legal challenge from the state's teachers union.
The proposal is "unlawful, ill-conceived, overbroad, and misguided," said the Florida Education Association in a petition filed with the Division of Administrative Hearings within hours of Winn's announcement.
It was unclear Friday what effect the association's filing would have on the plan, which the state Board of Education is expected to approve Feb. 21.
It was also unclear how soon parents might be able to see a future best-teachers list.
If it survives the legal challenge, the state's bonus plan would begin to kick in next year. Department officials say they have no immediate plans to post the rankings, but once the information is turned over to districts to determine bonuses, it will become public record.
At immediate issue is the way teachers are paid.
For decades, teacher salaries have been largely based on education level and years on the job. But some education researchers see that system as outdated and a big hurdle to attracting higher quality teachers.
Several years ago, the Legislature created a system to award teacher bonuses based on FCAT scores and other criteria left to the discretion of districts. But many districts, pressured by teachers unions, developed voluntary plans that were so thorny few teachers applied. In Pinellas last year, not a single teacher got the bonus.
So, last summer, the department began crafting a new rule.
The result: A proposed system that, for many teachers, will be based exclusively on how their students score on the FCAT.
The plan is "an idea whose time has come," said Pinellas superintendent Clayton Wilcox, in a written statement circulated by DOE. Wilcox was not superintendent when the district crafted its earlier voluntary plan.
He says the new approach makes more sense.
"We should be able to reward those who are getting the greatest gains for our kids," he said.
Winn said the department will look at how much improvement students make on the test, not bottom-line scores. It will also use an equalizing formula that won't penalize teachers who have heavy concentrations of either stellar or struggling students.
Teachers who don't teach FCAT-tested subjects - reading and math - can earn bonuses, too, but exactly how was another unknown Friday.
The department says districts must come up with other ways to determine how well students are learning under those teachers, such as using other standardized tests. In some cases, that could mean using tests that are now not widely used, or creating new tests.
In other cases, observers were stumped on what a good evaluation tool might be.
What about reading coaches, asked Connie Gilbert, who oversees the bonus pay plan for the Hillsborough school district.
"Some of our best teachers were pulled out to do that," she said. "One of the comments I've heard is that perhaps (reading coaches) will be assessed on the performance of the teachers whose classes make the learning gains."
Winn said the department hasn't decided which measures to use for non-FCAT teachers. The districts will have until June to submit their ideas to the state. In the meantime, some amendments to the plan will be considered.
But Winn made it clear Friday that wiggle room did not mean endless patience. He repeated an earlier threat to crack down on districts that continue to skirt the spirit of the law, citing authority to withhold millions of dollars in state funds.
"I'm perfectly willing to use that if we have blatant noncompliance," he said.
The department will ask the Legislature for $55-million this year to get the bonus program started, Winn said.
Critics weren't pacified.
Some said if parents thought schools were already FCAT-obsessed, they hadn't seen anything yet.
"You're asking teachers ... to forgo the more creative elements of their job," said Florida teachers union spokesman Mark Pudlow. "If they want to get this pay, they can just say, "nuts to it"' and teach to the test.
"We're developing a child, not a test score," said Dana Clements, who teaches at Westchase Elementary in Hillsborough County.
Clements had her doubts about the state's new plan, but she likes the system Hillsborough had put into place. Unlike Pinellas, hundreds of teachers applied for bonuses in Hillsborough. Last year, nearly 1,000 earned them.
They had to not only show improvement on FCAT scores, but meet a checklist of other requirements, such as improving communication with parents and introducing students to new technology.
"It kept me in line," Clements said.
In workshops to develop the new state rule, Hillsborough officials pushed for flexibility to continue their plan, which was voluntary but enjoyed growing support among teachers. Friday's announcement amounted to a rebuff.
"I'm not sure the state heard the word "flexibility,"' Gilbert said.
In its legal challenge, the teachers union argues that the Department of Education exceeded its authority in pushing the plan, and asks a hearing officer to declare it "invalid as a vague and arbitrary proposal."
Winn said it would be a "travesty" if the unions delayed bonuses "for even one more year."
--Times staff writer Jeffrey Solochek contributed to this report. Ron Matus can be reached at 727 893-8873 or matus@sptimes.com
[Last modified February 11, 2006, 06:41:52]
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