Florida Works to Protect Successful Teachers

On March 24^th, Florida Governor Rick Scott officially signed the Student Success Act into law and started Florida down the road to quality education. The bill has many components, but I want to address those sections that are most critical for success in education reform.

First, SSA modifies the way that teachers are evaluated in the public school system by expanding the scale used to define quality and by incorporating student achievement gains in performance reviews instead of only relying on peer and administrator evaluations. It is vital to be able to identify exactly which teachers are producing results and which are substandard educators. In Florida’s previous system, 99.7% of teachers qualified as satisfactory when evaluated. The challenge, which Florida attempts to solve, is creating an evaluation method that does not categorize every teacher as satisfactory, but also incorporates multiple reliable means of assessment.

Second, the legislation identifies the subject areas that fail to attract qualified teachers and promises to pay them more. Educators qualified to teach high school math have far more employment options than those qualified to teach social studies or music. By paying these teachers more, the school system will be able to attract more qualified people willing to teach math and science and draw them away from what are usually higher paying careers.

Finally, and perhaps most critically, Florida abandons its tenure system. Instead of granting teachers tenure after three years of employment, the state will begin to hire teachers based on annual contracts. This piece is crucial to successfully reforming the public school education system. When teachers receive tenure, it becomes very difficult to terminate their services, no matter how poor their job performance becomes. By instituting a system of annual contracting, the Florida school system will ensure that their education professionals remain both professional and effective.

Other states must look to the Student Success Act and institute similar measures. Florida does not take away collective bargaining rights nor does it strip away union access to the state’s teachers. It also increases the rate of pay for some of its teaching professionals. Florida’s measures would reward successful teachers, especially those in subject areas where other high paying opportunities exist, and it would force those who performed poorly to either shape up or leave the classroom.

More information on the act can be found on the governor’s website:
http://www.flgov.com/2011/03/24/governor-scott-signs-student-success-act/