Teacher: 'Pay me what the future is worth'
Teachers decry a plan that would tie teachers' compensation to students' FCAT scores. The obsession with selective numbers, they say, is adding to classroom stress, will ignoring the fact that Florida teachers' salaries lag behind the national average.
By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published February 24, 2006
Karen Tuttle embodies what it's like to be a Florida teacher, in more ways than one.
Tuttle, 33, teaches fourth grade at Pelican Marsh Elementary in Naples, an A-rated school. Her principal chose her to be a leader of a team of teachers. A self-described overachiever, she exudes a dedication to teaching.
She also sounds discouraged after a decade in the classroom and is thinking of getting out because of too little pay, too much paperwork, and a fixation with the FCAT at the expense of real learning.
"We measure student success by their test-taking skills -- how well they can bubble in a bubble," Tuttle says. "You can only make a worksheet so interesting."
More than ever, the FCAT is the driving force for measuring student achievement and grading schools. Now, Tuttle and her teacher union colleagues are battling a state plan to tie bonuses for 10 percent of teachers to improvements in their students' FCAT scores.
The union calls the "E-Comp" plan a "heavy-handed decree" imposed by Gov. Jeb Bush and bureaucrats the plan is explained on a new state Web site, www.floridaecomp.com)
Bush's administration and many GOP legislators support FCAT bonuses. They reject as totally unfair a union-driven system in which teachers of equal experience make the same salary, even though one teacher may be coasting and the other is making extra effort.
The FCAT is also an emerging issue in the governor's race. Republicans defend reliance on high-stakes testing, and Democrat Rod Smith gets cheers when he complains about how the FCAT "is turning eight-year-old kids into failures."
A Quinnipiac University poll released this week showed that voters oppose the FCAT bonus idea by a margin of 2-to-1, and even Republican voters opposed it by a slim majority of 51 percent.
Three weeks ago, Tuttle went to Tallahassee and addressed legislators at a joint meeting of two House committees. At one point, her voice cracked as she described the growing frustration of the work she loves.
"We have that feeling of inadequacy, that we can never catch up," Tuttle testified. "I'm told what to teach, when to teach it, and how to teach it. You want a robot. It's not worth it."
Tuttle is an unintentional role model for the growing problem of teacher turnover, or what policymakers call the "recruitment and retention" problem.
In an interview, Tuttle said she did not want to come across as sounding negative. She believes in accountability and in challenging students, but she's opposed to the FCAT fixation.
"We measure the heck out of one test. That's the problem," Tuttle says. "I don't feel it's good when kids are under that much stress, and they're crying. It's hard to get a realistic measure of their ability."
Maybe it's just as well she doesn't own a nice home, Tuttle said, because the mounting demands of her job force her to spend longer and longer days at school just to keep up with the routine paperwork chores.
"Teachers are consumed with paperwork," Tuttle said. "We're data addicts."
Bush is proud of that addiction to data. The governor offered a starkly different view of public education at the recent James Madison Institute's 2006 Florida Education Summit.
"If you don't measure it, you don't care. Think about it," Bush said. "In Florida, we care a lot, and so we measure the bejesus out of everything. And I'm proud of that."
"This is as nerdy as all get out," Bush said, "but I'm proud of the fact that we have the best data base for measuring student performance in the country. Measuring things matters."
Measure this: Florida teacher salaries continue to lag behind the national average. Most teachers have no hope of being able to afford a single-family home.
A first-year teacher makes about $30,000 a year in Collier, and a new home costs up to $500,000. Tuttle's school (A-rated under the FCAT scores, by the way) sits in the shadow of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Naples, as if to remind teachers of the meager financial rewards of their chosen field.
Rep. David Simmons, R-Longwood, seized on the teacher-pay issue, telling Tuttle: "I feel very strongly you're underpaid." He also challenged K-12 Chancellor Cheri Yecke to come up with a realistic plan to pay teachers more money.
When Tuttle was asked how big a raise she felt was justified, she said: "I think you should pay me what you think the future is worth."
After delivering her downbeat testimony, Tuttle headed back home to Naples. She was due home at 1 o'clock in the morning. Her students were taking an FCAT preparation test the next day.
Steve Bousquet can be reached at bousquet@sptimes.com or 850 222-7263.