Furthermore, public schools should be able to select their own curriculum and pedagogical practices instead of being forced to implement programs from the state like Sen. Wise’s beloved “Failure-Free Reading” program. That program seemed to produce more failures than anything else. Thankfully, Gov. Scott cut funding for that program. Teachers constantly have to do things that are ineffective, yet be held “accountable” for the results at the same time. Just because a program worked for the teacher-turned-professor-turned-product-producer doesn’t mean it will work for all teachers within a school, district, or state.

—–
Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Sarasota, delivered the bluntest argument for [SB736's] passage: She said districts haven’t removed bad teachers, even though they could have done so under current pay systems.

“We had a process. You didn’t have the courage to use it,” she said.

With more than 90 percent of teachers earning good evaluations, yet many students still struggling on FCAT, something is amiss, she said.

“We’ve started to forget what business we’re in. We’re not in the employment business. We’re in the business of moving kids from point A to point B,” Detert said.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_education_edblog/2011/02/merit-pay-bill-the-purpose-the-questions-the-concerns.html
——

This idea that accountability cannot exist unless we use a VAM system is absurd. Somehow, the elite schools where politicians send their children manage to function very well without them. Furthermore, Florida’s model makes what the Kindergarten teacher does in her classroom irrelevant because her VAM score will be based on school-wide 4th and 5th grade FCAT results and not the results of her own students. That is the case for elective teachers as well. Even when subject-area exams are implemented (which should have happened BEFORE the merit no-pay law went into effect), can we really use a Pearson bubble test to gauge how well a person learned in a music class? Don’t we admire musicians and artists for how they play, sing, or draw instead of their head knowledge about history, composers, artists, etc.?

Congratulations on being the first person to reply to me without giving me 50-80 pages of homework!

When coercion is the mechanism that underlies the situation then there ought to be no other expectation of those being compelled but resentment, resignation and resistance. Sorry for the alliteration but I’m a bit rushed.

The real wonder is that my three “R” aren’t much more forcefully expressed. It’s the victory of hope, and an unlikely degree of willingness to defer gratification, over the facts.

That’s not quite true. What “you” always been told is that you ought to be accountable for results, improve performance and increase productivity over time.

Oh, I guess that is like the private sector. Never mind.

I agree that students and parents need to take responsibility, but all of the major Florida reforms promote parental involvement. Grading schools A-F gets parents involved, giving parents school choices gets them involved, curtailing social promotion gets parents involved.

Back during the 1990s policies that the FEA fought so hard to preserve and to which they seem to yearn for today, only 37% of
Florida’s low-income children learned how to read. The high school graduation was among the lowest in the nation, the percentage of Florida children passing AP exams was a fraction of what it is today.

Florida teachers should take pride in all of this.

When parents are responsible, accountability for teachers doesn’t have to be politicized and teachers can have more freedom to teach while also being accountable for results like real professionals:

http://www.edchoice.org/Research/Reports/Free-to-Teach—What-America-s-Teachers-Say-about-Teaching-in-Public-and-Private-Schools.aspx

Teachers are not against accountability. We are just against have to take sole responsibility when other parties play a role in educational outcomes. In the current reform climate, it appears as though no pressure is placed upon the students and parents to put in their side of the deal, which happens regularly in charter schools with their mandatory parent volunteer hours and the private school admissions and dismissal process.

The research however shows that teacher quality is far more important than class size.

http://jaypgreene.com/2008/04/25/indiana-jones-and-the-teacher-quality-crusade/