SB 6 -Too Many Contradictions
The following is an Opinion Editorial written by FEA President Andy Ford
Over the past 12 years, the teachers and other educators in the state of Florida have done everything that elected leaders and the state Department of Education have asked them to do. According to former Gov. Jeb Bush, “Florida is now a model for the nation” in education. Last year, Education Commissioner Eric Smith said “every teacher, student, parent and administrator should be proud of the work they’ve done this year.” Gov. Charlie Crist said “Florida is truly blessed to have such high quality teachers who have made our education system one of the best in the nation.”
On the measure state leaders have chosen, the FCAT, scores are up and on the grade system they’ve chosen, we had a record number of schools achieve “A” grades last year.
The answer to all this good news is to punish the teachers who have delivered the goods that the state has asked them to deliver. The classroom teacher has 0 percent input in the process -- she has no control over the students who come into her classroom, she has no control over the funding the state delivers, she has no say over standards and curriculum. Yet, we expect our teachers to bear 100 percent of the responsibility for the outcomes in the classroom.
Senate Bill 6 was developed and put together without an ounce of input from our teachers, the union that represents them, the administrators who run our schools and our school districts or from the elected officials on our school boards who oversee our local schools.
Are their bands of slacker teachers not doing their jobs? Of course not. Are teachers failing to meet the goals you set on the ridiculous testing mania we’ve adopted in Florida as a substitute for real education? No way, we’ve met all your goals. Should teachers lose their jobs over some as-yet undeveloped model that measures student learning gains? Not without more answers on how this is going to work and a full understanding of the challenges teachers face each day.
This bill relies on mythology that isn’t backed by credible research. In fact, there’s a lot of mythology present in SB 6: the myth that it’s impossible to fire a teacher or that a teacher gets a lifetime appointment after a few years in the classroom; the myth that test scores provide an objective view of an education; the myth that you can raise standards and expectations without providing the resources to do the job.
Let’s dispense with the myths. Let’s stick to the facts. Scrap SB 6 and identify the problems political leaders believe exist in the system and involve everyone from the classroom, to the principal’s office to the district administrators in fixing those problems. Working in a collaborative way, we can find solutions that everyone can embrace, which is a far better route than buying into myths and expecting that they’ll become reality.
The Florida Education Association and its 140,000 members oppose this legislation. It will disrupt our public schools and invite more chaos to an already overburdened and underfinanced school system. And it’s not likely to have the desired effect of making sure the best teachers are in front of our classrooms and student achievement continues to rise.
Andy Ford is the president of the Florida Education Association, which has 140,000 members in Florida’s public schools, community colleges, and universities. FEA members include Pre-K through 12th grade teachers, education staff professionals, higher education faculty, graduate assistants, retired members and staff. Ford has taught in a Catholic school in Trenton, N.J., and in urban public elementary schools in Jacksonville.
