Cartoon By Jim MorinAccording to the Miami Herald, the discussion in the Florida House went until 2:30 a.m.:
The vote was 64 for and 55 against the measure, which would overhaul the way teachers are evaluated, compensated and fired in Florida. Eleven Republicans joined Democrats in voting no.
Good for those 11, among them were: Representatives Marcelo Llorente, J.C Planas, Julio Robaina, and Juan Zapata. I think the bill sucks, like its sponsor the asshole, Sen. John Thrasher, also head of the Florida Republican Party. I believe that if Crist doesn't sign it, he will have to become an Independent because the Radical Pubs will be mad as hell.
34 comments:
I didn't think it could get any worse for teachers. Let's hope Crist doesn't sign it. If he doesn't, I will follow your path to being a Republican. Someone has to stop these morons in Tallahassee.
McM
If teachers operated like the legislature.
They'd work 60 days? a year.
Appoint their own supervisors
and workplace monitors.
Have expense accounts, car and travel allowances.
Never have to buy their own lunch.
Accept contributions from students school builders
and suppliers of educational material.
Be able to participate in lucrative school land deals.
Little reported on: there is a funding bonzana in the bill for private schools. The legislature has been trying to scuttle public schools for a long time under the Jeb Bush agenda that lives on thanks to the scum left in the Senate and House. Teachers should support redistricting. It is the only way to clean house in the legislature.
*Bangs head on desk*
Well this just put me in a sour mood
Ugh....
Florida's future continues to dim as the dimwitted lead the looting of the taxpayer wallet and funnel those funds to private business. Do not sign this bill, Charlie! Run as an independent, Charlie!
i wish you were watching this committee meeting now to see how the Fla House doesnt know the rules of order. theyre trying to pass a bill that allows them to sue the Feds for the Health Care reform.
11:45 AM General Government Policy Council
http://myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/HouseCalendar/broadcast.aspx
click on Live Video Stream
What a disaster. What the hail happened in Tally this year?
I think it is a good incentive and will separate the wheat from the chaff. Aronowitz represents a lot of chaff.
If you are a good teacher you are not protesting this. You are confident you will be compensated well above what the union would have negotiated and caved to.
So you get 5 kids who don't speak English well and 2 who are mainstreamed but cannot cope with the mainstream work. That is your fault as a teacher, when they can't excel on a test?
At the end of the day, there have to be standards for teachers. What are they so afraid of? First we have the opponents of the FCAT, and now opponents of holding teachers to minimum standards. I thought school was about learning. If you can't measure what the kids know by testing them, or what kind of a job teachers are doing by the progress of their students, why have school at all? All this griping about some people not testing well is just bs. If you know your stuff, there is nothing to fear by being tested. Increase teacher's salaries significantly, but hold them to a standard. If they can't cut it, they never should have been in the classroom in the first place. I'm tired of all the whining from those who are supposed to have the best interests of our children at heart. Get over it and get to work doing what you are paid for; preparing the next generation to run the world. If you can't resolve yourselves to performance standards like every other industry uses to evaluate performance to determine pay, raises, promotions, etc., maybe you should find a cushy foundation think tank to work for instead of teaching.
Just a thought Charlie Crist. Don't sign the bill, Run as an independant for Senator in the fall and its my guess most if not all the teachers in Florida will vote for you cancelling out the teabagers.:-)
Visit www.SupportDadeSchools.net, they're all over this issue and have an absentee ballot request effort underway. They're engaging parents in a big way.
Ah, but dear Dave, their salaries aren't being "increased significantly." Instead, they're being stripped of any legal protections. This bill allows for any teacher to be removed WITHOUT CAUSE at the end of the one-year contract term.
If they were unjustly dismissed they can go try to find work somewhere else, but if they leave the County they're in - just moving from Dade to Broward for instance - they'll be treated as rookie teachers even if they've been in their profession for 10 years.
And Teachers have about a million standards they have to meet already. It isn't as if there's no accountability now. One story about a crappy teacher does not mean they're all crappy.
And I know quite a few teachers - some have been nominated or have actually been "teacher of the year" for their schools and for the district. They abhor this bill.
David is right on. This is the age of no responsibility, Crist's office is being flooded with parents and students complaining. They are not complaining about the standards, they are complaining about who is going to watch the kids.
To all teachers:
Education is an entitlement all kids deserve, babysitting is not. Teachers must not let the union speak for them, this is not a one size fits all problem but the union makes it's case that way. I have great respect for teachers it is a noble profession, now teach the children what you know about being noble and not being entitled to the union manifesto of no responsibility, you are not all the same. Just like any other occupation teachers must do the best job possible every day and ask the administration for assistance on issues related to your performance challenges so you are the best teacher you can be.
Go up the chain of command until your classroom has the result that you are given and you know you have given it your all. If you fail, the children fail, Miami fails, Florida fails and our nation fails. I believe in you teachers, you have chosen to sacrifice for the development of others. Sounds like a lofty goal but it is the very reason you teach.
Embrace the challenge don't fight a theory, show everyone what you and I know you can do. They are giving you a bonus to do what you love to do. I sincerely hope you succeed and take all of the bonuses and incentives for performance they offer.
The last two posters don't have a clue that is why I added Jim Morin's cartoon to my post.
You can't have performance measures for children of such diverse backgrounds. If a teacher has 3 children speaking only Creole, because she speaks a bit of Creole, and another teacher doesn't -- who do you think will get better test results? The teacher with the less diverse class of course. Sure teachers in Pinecrest might like this bill but probably they wouldn't either out of fairness for all teachers. The Legislature has systematically tried to undermine public schools for years now. They call them State Schools, they can't even say the word "public." There is funding for private schools in this bill. It is a farce. They paint it as doing something to help kids...if they cared about the kids they wouldn't have stripped school budgets. Get a grip people, you are being had and the last two comments...you two should go read somewhere else.
Language is a barrier for the first few years a child is learning a language. The child still has to take an FCAT test, even though the child does not understand it. The teacher will suffer.
I have no love loss for anyone who complains about a one year contract, Hello!!! out here in the real world you can get canned on an hours notice and that's fine by me. If your good at what you do you will always have work if your not then your at your bosses mercy (Is that brown i see on your nose).
As a parent (no I don't eat my young) I wouldn't want any teacher who is protesting at the behest of the union teaching my child, if your in it for the money then maybe you should look for another job (I hear Bill Gates just retired).
Besides starting pay is close to 40K some folks in the private sector would kill for that especially considering your OFF almost 3 months in the summer, 2 Weeks During Christmas/Chanukah, a week during easter/passover and every fedral holiday you can think off and then some.
Don't like your work environment or pay? I got a suggestion... quit!! and find something else to do (thats if your competent enough to do anything).
Just a thought. Why not tie the pay of the legislature's to the scores in there district. Put some of there own skin in the game !
Guess Who: You are a putz.
Guess Who - you expect a professional to work for $40,000 a year? When I got my job teaching I was making less than a sanitation worker - that job did not require a college education.
Letter in the Miami Herald today:
Posted on Saturday, 04.10.10
SB 6 will discourage good teachers
Florida's public school curriculum is based primarily on the FCAT with nearly eight out of 10 months of school spent preparing for these high-stakes exams. Students and teachers alike look forward to April when content-directed learning finally takes place.
Senate Bill 6 will eliminate these two months of real education by requiring end-of-year exams and basing teacher pay on student performance on them. Instead of teaching content, we will teach to yet another exam, drilling students at the expense of other instruction. Our livelihood will depend on it.
Forty years ago children were taught science, math, literature and writing, geography and history, art, music, theater, dance and physical education. Today curricular diversity is reduced to information required for a few tests, none of which result in a creative, complete education. Academic freedom has all but disappeared in the public schools. Under SB 6, creativity will vanish.
The legislation will drive away our most talented teachers and discourage our brightest college students from considering a teaching career. Today's bachelor's degree is the equivalent of yesterday's high school diploma, a fact widely recognized in higher education and the workplace.
Yet Florida purports that a teacher with four years of undergraduate education and no experience is the equivalent of someone like me, a teacher with a doctorate and more than 20 years of teaching. As professionals with advanced degrees and national board certification are driven out by reduced pay scales, who will mentor new teachers?
No teacher will risk taking chances in trying out new methods of instruction or designing enriching lessons when she cannot be certain she will have a job next year.
The true costs of SB 6 are far greater than the amount required to develop new tests and preparation materials in every subject, at every grade level. They are far greater than creating a uniform evaluation system for assessing teacher performance. They will surpass any dollars saved by forcing out expensive teachers with advanced degrees and national certification while more money is committed to charter schools, where there is little accountability to state standards.
The real cost is the minds and futures of our children, who will be even less prepared to face a complex and challenging world dominated by those whose governments believe in a real education and act to ensure the future of their nations.
KATHERINE DRISCOLL, Miami
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/10/1572389/sb-6-will-discourage-good-teachers.html#ixzz0khWlJulX
Senate Bill-6 is as big of a joke as the FCAT. Instead of provding our kids a real education with diversity, they are being taught a test. What will a teacher to do to put food on their table; make tests accessible so all of their kids can pass and they get their much needed raises? I hope that come November we will all remember. Kudos to Zapata and Robaina for caring about their consituents who are impacted by this bill. Llorente is a disappointment as he voted for this bill but also voted to strip retired teachers of their health insurance subsidy. For those of us who have kids in the public school system, it is the best value for your tax dollar. Why the employees are given second class wages and is underfunded by government is a joke.
CORRECTION TO LAST ANON-Llorente and Planas voted against this bill too, like Robaina and Zapata...kudos to these 4 legislators for doing the right thing.
Ref: Llorente, I mentioned that he voted for this bill but he voted against the teachers and other state retirement participants when he voted to get rid of their health insurance subsidy.
"Guess Who - you expect a professional to work for $40,000 a year? When I got my job teaching I was making less than a sanitation worker - that job did not require a college education."
So what I gather from you is that sanitation workers are over paid.
There are lots of proffessionals with degrees making 40K in the private sector.
If you became a teacher to be rich or live the dolce vita then maybe its time you changed careers.
Llorente, Planas, Zapata and Robaina voted against this, but.... what do they have in common? They are ALL termed out.
They can't run again in the coming elections so they had nothing to lose. They aren't the heroes you think.... they just wanted to leave the Legistature 'looking good'.
I believe Charlie Crist will veto and then send it back so the Bill can get amended, and then passes.
Robaina is running for State Senate and Llorente for mayor.
Planas was running for Circuit judge
Remove your partisan blinders before typing.
Teachers are well educated with lots of marketable skills. If they don't like the heat, they should get out of the kitchen and do something else. No one forces a teacher to be a teacher; they choose their profession. How can you be against using testing in a school to determine student and teacher performance? What other method would you use? The excuse that teachers are teaching to a test is exactly the problem. Teachers should be teaching to a body of knowledge in a specific subject area and testing students to determine their grasp of the body of knowledge, not the test. Teaching to the test is teachers being lazy and allowing their students to be lazy with them.
David you are so totally off base on this subject, I just can't even respond to you. You just don't get it.
Hey, Genius, help me understand. What's wrong with accountability and standards? This is Dave (not from FPL) by the way.
Look at the cartoon Dave. Some things don't translate to accountability and standards because there is no way to measure...like in the cartoon. A test doesn't measure success.
For instance, principal Barney Bishop doesn't like Dave the teacher. So he puts 3 creole speaking kids, a mainstreamed learning disabled kid, 3 kids with emotional problems all in Dave's class. Dave does a bang-up job helping these kids but on the test they do poorly. Annoying Dave is out on his ass.
You can't measure human beings like a profit margin. They are not a sales quota. I have been in classrooms where you have to move the hands of profoundly retarded children. I have been in classes with children who can't sit still for 10 seconds, and kids with alcoholic syndrome.
Unless you have been in a classroom do not judge teachers. If they teach them how to dress, how to act in society, sometimes that is a lot. Teachers have to teach social skills because the parents didn't do that. I asked my niece, if you found an an envelope with an address and a stamp on it, what would you do with it (that it is an IQ question). My niece said, I would throw it away. What is that about? WRONG. You have to teach too much today because of what the parents are NOT teaching the kids. DON'T JUDGE TEACHERS UNLESS YOU TEACH.
Saying don't judge teachers unless you teach is like saying you can't do cardiac bypass surgery unless you have blocked arteries or can't be an addiction treatment professional unless you are an addict. It's like saying you can't be a sportswriter unless you were an athlete, can't be an environmentalist unless you befouled the environment. I'm still waiting to hear an alternative to measuring teacher performance. I hear lots of rhetoric, but little in the way of direct response to the question.
What I think I hear is that teachers' performance should not be measured at all because they're too busy playing mommy and daddy. Lame and unacceptable.
David you are thick as a brick:
using your example:
What I am saying:
you can't JUDGE cardiac bypass surgery if you are not a surgeon.
You are making lame connections: Saying don't judge teachers unless you teach is like saying you can't do cardiac bypass surgery unless you have blocked arteries - that is your faulty thinking david.
Go make your points on the Herald site, I am not responding to stupid stuff.
David is beyond dumb as his analogy is based on professional and people they serve.
Your analogy is based on professional judging professional.
In his analogy he is wrongly stating that you are saying the teachers should be judged by the students.
Give up. Lame guy.
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