On Thursday, March 25, I was present during the first two and a half hours of the Pre-K-12 Committee debate of HB 7189. Unfortunately I had to leave before I was called to speak, and obviously also before the bill passed the committee, though from what I have heard and read, it was pushed through despite a great many speakers who had traveled from all over the state not having a chance to speak, and despite not having finished examining all the proposed amendments.
What I observed during the first two and a half hours was a very divisive partisan struggle. The Democrats, particularly Rep. Mia Jones (D-Jacksonville), Rep. Martin Kiar (D-Parkland) and Rep. Dwight Bullard (D-Miami), had crafted a number of amendments that could have helped mitigate some of the damage to public education and especially to the recruitment and retention of qualified teachers. These amendments included ones that would make advanced degrees relevant to salaries (SB 6/HB 7189 nullifies the financial benefits to teachers of holding advanced degrees); that would continue to provide financial benefits for National Board Certified teacher (another casualty of SB 6/HB 7189); that would prevent teachers transitioning between schools from losing certification based on standardized test scores; that would allow new teachers to earn tenure though it would hinge on performance (the current bill eliminates tenure for all new teachers, putting all of them on annual contracts ad infinitum); that would ensure that the as-yet unwritten and unbudgeted end-of-course exams would include a pre-test so that evaluations could be made based on learning gains rather than a simple pass/fail rate; that teachers would be guaranteed to earn at least the national average. Each of these amendments was voted down along straight party lines, 10-5 (10 Republicans to 5 Democrats).
A few interesting arguments made during the debate of the amendments: Rep. Will Weatherford (R-Wesley Chapel) argued that there was no reason teachers should necessarily be compensated for advanced degrees, because in an insurance agency, an insurance agent would not be paid more for having a higher degree. His pay would depend on how much insurance he sold. This comment scarcely deserves comment; that one would draw a parallel between a sales job functioning on commission and education is flatly absurd. His point seemed to be that if the advanced degree were truly of some benefit to the students and the educational process, that that would show up on the tests according to which the teachers would be paid. I could easily refute this argument from a very personal perspective. I hold a Master degree in French literature. A teacher with only a Bachelor could easily produce the same results on a standardized French I test that was crafted according to the textbook, because this is a written test, most likely testing only the reading and grammatical skills of the student in the target language. Does this mean that my MA does not make me a better teacher? I would certainly argue that it does. For one thing, my accent improved dramatically throughout graduate school, as all of my courses were in French, I became friends with a number of French exchange students in my school, I was teaching elementary courses in French at the time, and it afforded me the opportunity to spend a year in France through an exchange program with my graduate school. My improved accent helps the students with listening comprehension and their own speaking skills--two things not tested on a standardized test. Those same experiences also gave me a great deal of cultural insight, which I share with my students on a regular basis--one of the most important aspects of learning another language. Furthermore, studying French literature in depth and from so many different periods has given me a great knowledge bank that has aided me in choosing appropriate texts to have my students at different levels read and respond to. All of these things make my class more engaging and richer, yet none of them would necessarily show up in a student's standardized test scores. Does this mean that my Master is worthless as far as my teaching skills or my students' educational experience goes--just because it would not necessarily increase their score on a single written test? With all due respect, Rep. Weatherford obviously does not understand very much about education, to make such a comparison. Anyone who understands education understands its complexities and nuances, and can plainly see that it has nothing in common with selling insurance.
These legislators need to know education is not a business and to try and compare it with businesses fails.
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