Florida's Senate Education Committee just passed a plan that would make a voucher or other money for educational expenses universally accessible to Florida families. Despite its "vouchers-for-all" moniker, the proposed bill creating Education Savings Accounts passed with the support of one Democrat, Bill Montford, who also serves as the chief executive of the Florida Association of District School Superintendents.
"I've got some serious concerns," Montford said. "But this concept is certainly worth exploring."
The support is all the more notable considering Gov. Rick Scott himself backed away from the idea before the state's legislative session began last month. Scott's education transition team recommended the savings account, inspired by the Goldwater Institute, and proposed funding each participating family with an amount equal to 90 percent of what the state would pay per pupil in public schools. A torrent of criticism followed, even from those who favored vouchers in various designs, including from Cato Institute scholar Andrew J. Coulson.
The current plan would pay an amount only equivalent to 40 percent of the per-pupil allocation and there would be no income restriction on eligibility. The account could be used for educational expenses that include private school tuition, private tutoring, textbooks or college savings plans.
The Florida House today passed a landmark teacher pay and tenure bill -- one Gov. Rick Scott said he will sign it into law -- but one evaluation remains overlooked. Under the bill, parents could get a report card on their own student’s teacher.
The disclosure provision in SB 736 is narrowly drawn: “Each school district shall annually report to the parent of any student who is assigned to a classroom teacher … having two consecutive annual performance evaluation ratings of unsatisfactory, two annual performance evaluation ratings of unsatisfactory within a 3-year period, or three consecutive annual performance evaluation ratings of needs improvement …”
So this particular public rating is a distant cousin to the kind of value-added performance database of 6,000 third- through fifth-grade Los Angeles school teachers that was constructed and published last fall by the Los Angeles Times. First, no one will be rated and ranked. Second, no one’s teaching ability will be reduced to a numerical score. Third, this will draw on multiple years’ worth of evaluation. Fourth, this disclosure will be limited to teachers who have been judged as poorly performing.
Still, this is a significant step. It will give parents information that puts teachers on the spot, which will probably give pause to both. The ticklish part here is that evaluations will always be flawed to some degree, and we still are learning how best to deal with classroom factors such as student absenteeism or mobility, parental support, and the disadvantages of poverty. We’re still calibrating how to assess team teaching or courses, such as art and physical education, that are not as easily assessed.
These evaluations are sufficiently complex that they might be best offered with a warning label for parents. But they do have intrinsic value and play a constructive role in a public education system that keeps inviting parents to take advantage of different learning options and to find the right match for their children. This kind of data is also destined, much like the comparative performance scores that were revealed by the No Child Left Behind Act, to lead us to a greater understanding of what happens in the classroom. That’s never bad.
The St. Petersburg Times caught up with Michelle Rhee today and asked for her thoughts on the Florida Senate's swift approval of a measure that would revamp the hiring and firing of teachers and install performance-based evaluations. Rhee told reporter Jeff Solochek, "We're very excited about the progress that's been made ... We've been using Florida as an example across the rest of the country as a state that is taking an aggressive stance on these important issues."
Rhee has been highlighting these issues frequently in Florida, where she works as an informal education adviser to newly elected Gov. Rick Scott. The state's legislative session just opened this week, and what the Senate did this week for the teacher bill, the House is expected to do next week. When that's done, Rhee won't be finished in the Sunshine State. She tells the Times that she plans to return to promote proposed changes to charter school governance.
UPDATE: Senate passes SB 736 by a 26-12 margin, with one Democrat voting in favor and two Republicans in opposition.
The Florida Senate and the Florida House Education Committee are currently debating a closely watched measure to revamp the way teachers are evaluated, paid and -- perhaps most significantly -- how they're fired. The Gradebook, an education blog from the St. Petersburg Times, has an update here.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott will deliver his first State of the State speech this evening, and whatever he may say about education, political observers in the Sunshine State already are calling this legislative session one of the most consequential, and controversial, for public education.
Michelle Rhee has visited the state several times, in part to encourage legislators to pass Senate Bill 736, Florida's latest effort to revamp teacher contracts and evaluations. SB 736 is already on the Senate's calendar, and lawmakers are seeking to remake the educational landscape with bills that would facilitate universal vouchers or a widely expanded array of online educational opportunities. All this would spark a volatile debate without the governor's proposal to cut 10 percent off the per-pupil formula paid to public schools to help bankroll operational costs. The state must close a $4 billion budget gap.
RedefinED will have updates on these and other measures as the Legislature convenes during the next couple of months. This is a list of bills we'll be paying attention to: (more…)
