Last night we framed the narrative for the battle between Florida's teachers and the Republican State Legislature.
Today the Wall Street Journal hung it on page A1 for the entire world to see.
It doesn't get any better than that.
By passing up contenders such as Florida and Louisiana, widely seen as favorites, Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a message to state capitals that winners must garner broad support from teachers' unions and local school boards.
All local unions in Delaware backed the state's bid, while 93% lent their support in Tennessee. By comparison, Florida—which is otherwise engaged in one of the country's most sweeping school overhauls—had the backing of only 8% of its unions.
Florida's unions complained loudly that the governor's office and other state officials didn't bring them into the process while drafting the state's application.
Officials in Delaware and Tennessee say they worked closely with their unions from the start of the process.
The Wall Street Journal also says this:
The first results are sure to set off a complicated dance between state officials and teachers unions. States will now have to strive to win union endorsements, but without agreeing to concessions that would undermine other parts of their application.
The "complicated dance" in Florida may actually turn the state blue. I know that people correctly scoff at that meme, and I adore Nate Silver just like everyone else here. (Happy Opening Day Nate, Go Marlins!)
But.
There is actually a new Facebook page for Florida Teachers and Parents Who Are Leaving the Republican Party.
Senator John Thrasher was forced to stop the flooding on his Senate Majority page this morning by blocking all new comments and cleaning out a bunch from yesterday.
Crist is still waffling, but McCollum actually gobbled the poison pill. He is blaming the unions for the failure of the top-secret no-teachers-allowed Republican proposal.
Here is coverage from the Tampa Bay newspapers.
TALLAHASSEE — Teachers, parents and even some students are flooding the Legislature with e-mails and phone calls. They're protesting outside lawmakers' offices and organizing a rally today at the Capitol.
Their chief target: legislation that would make it easier to fire teachers and base part of their salaries on test scores.
"We just couldn't sit at home and do nothing while our profession is being attacked," said Carole Robinson, a biology teacher at Dunedin High School who is driving up for today's rally in Tallahassee. "There is just no collaboration going on. We were shut out of the process."
Teachers are focusing their energy on House members and Gov. Charlie Crist, who they see as their last line of defense on SB 6, which has passed the Senate and is pending in the House. Crist's office received 700 calls on the issue last week. House lawmakers have received hundreds of thousands of e-mails and thousands of phone calls, according to Speaker Larry Cretul's office.
The online hub of the lobbying effort is a Facebook page called "Stop Senate Bill 6," which has almost 17,000 supporters. Visitors can find information on a dozen upcoming rallies across the state, as well as legislators' contact information.
"By far, this is the hottest issue I've ever had," said Rep. Bill Heller, a St. Petersburg Democrat who opposes the bill.
The legislation squeaked by the Senate last week on a 21-17 vote. Supporters in the House hope to pass an unchanged bill in the next few weeks to avoid a return vote in the other chamber. Such a move would send the bill straight to Crist.
"Some of the senators have buyer's remorse," said Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, who opposes the legislation. "They are hearing from teachers they care about how bad the bill is."
Last week, a group of Miami schoolchildren demonstrated outside the office of Rep. Esteban Bovo, R-Hialeah. His daughter, a junior, told him "not to hurt teachers." Even so, he is leaning toward supporting the bill.
"I think it is going to be a tight vote," he said. "I don't know necessarily if the votes are there to pass it."
Can you hear his voice shaking when he says that? The Republican good ol' boys and Reagan hispanics do not know what hit them, and it was thrown by their big man John Thrasher himself.
Very exciting times.
They thought they could breeze this through, and instead they have each gotten tens of thousands of teachers mobilized to vote them out in November. They might still bail on the bill. If they push it through despite our movement, then Arne Duncan and the Obama Administration is on the spot. I will leave you tonight with the truth from the Washington Post. Have a wonderful evening, my beloved Kossacks. Thank you so much for your support.
Legislators in the Sunshine State are moving with all due speed to pass legislation that would go a long way to making sure no teacher would ever want to work in Florida again.
The Republican-dominated Senate has already passed Senate Bill 6, which would require:
* School systems to evaluate and pay teachers primarily on the basis of student test scores. (Testing experts say this is a really bad idea.)
* School systems to ignore a teacher’s experience, advanced degrees or professional credentials in any evaluation or pay. (You don’t have to be a testing expert to know how really bad an idea this is.)
* School systems to put newly hired teachers on probation for five years and then give them annual contracts for the rest of their careers.
* Require the creation of more standardized tests for students, to cover subjects already not assessed.
A Florida House committee has already approved the companion version of this bill, with the same features, and the full chamber is expected to take it up this week. The governor, Charlie Crist, has said he supports the bill.
But now, just maybe, there’s a new wrinkle for the state.
Florida was a finalist in the first round of Duncan’s $4 billion "Race to the Top" sweepstakes in which states with education reform plans that subscribe to Duncan’s brand of reform -- more charter schools, more standardized testing, linking teacher pay to test scores -- can get millions of federal dollars.
Duncan announced Monday that only two of the 16 finalists were getting money in that round, Delaware and Tennessee.
Recently Florida’s education commissioner, Eric Smith, had said he thought Florida stood a good chance of winning money in the first round. The state ended up fourth in the competition. Comments from department reviewers of Florida’s proposal mentioned that one of the problems was lack of union support for its plans.
In fact, the unions that represent teachers are in full revolt over the legislature’s plans to eliminate job security.
So here’s the test for Duncan.
If, as he says, collaboration and buy-in from stakeholders matter a lot to the success of education reform, and they are important elements in any winning Race to the Top proposal, Florida is going to have to give up its plans to hit the state’s teachers over the heads with this dangerous legislation.
Because if Florida goes ahead with this legislation, and still wins Race to the Top money, Duncan is going to have a lot of explaining to do.