I love my job. Today was the first day back to school after Spring Break. I had a wonderful day teaching. In addition to my traditional Fine Arts curriculum, I am working on a Fellowship with the University of Florida studying the correlation between external rewards and student effort. We created "Water Saver" posters for a state contest, and then reflected on the difference between art created for its own sake and posters designed to win prizes.
We proved once again that public education in America can still bring out the brilliance of our children.
Then the bell rang for the last class, and the nightmare returned. Not only are we at war with Jeb Bush and the corrupt state Republicans, but it seems that even the White House may be against us.
For those who have not been following our plight, let me summarize.
Jeb Bush has enlisted corporate cronies and the Florida Republican state legislature to pass a law that will create an unfunded mandate to use some sort of currently non-existant new test scores as the criteria for salaries and retention of all public school teachers in the state. This is a perfect example of big government forming a pipleline for millions of tax dollars funneled to the testing industry, railroaded into law against the will of the people.
Even arch-conservatives like Diane Ravitch can see how much Senate Bill 6 will destroy education in Florida.
Diane Ravitch, an education research professor at New York University, has credentials that should impress the most conservative political conservative.
She was an undersecretary for education research and improvement for President H.W. Bush. She was a founding member of the conservative Hoover Institution’s Koret task force on education. She helped conservative buddy Checker Finn (another Daddy Bush education department member) set up his conservative Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.
She’s a grande dame of educational research and writing.
And she is outspokenly against the the proposed teacher merit pay plan that has been rapidly moving through the Florida Legislature.
In a letter to state legislators, Ravitch urges them simply to not pass the merit pay bill, which already has been approved by the Senate and is up for House consideration this week. One committee is discussing it today.
So why has Ravitch apparently gone rogue on teacher merit pay, a mainstay of the conservative philosophy?
It’s misguided and won’t work, she says.
There was also an interview with one of the 4 Republican State Senators who voted against it, and he has not received a single phone call or email in support of the bill.
In other words, the will of the people of Florida does not matter one bit. What will happen when Governor Crist signs this travesty? Ask Diane Ravitch. She is an expert.
Among fatal flaws, she says, is the theory that the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test or other student exams will reflect how well teachers taught students.
"Test scores do not identify the most effective teachers," Ravitch says in the letter, which the Florida Education Association, number one opponent of the proposed merit pay plan, has been quick to spread to the winds.
"I strongly believe that this bill will have very negative consequences for the children of the state of Florida. I believe it will dumb down their education. I believe that it will cause many of your best teachers to leave the profession or the state because this legislation is so profoundly disrespectful towards the education profession," Ravitch says.
Ravitch makes a number of arguments against basing teacher evaluations and pay on student performance, including that teachers are only partially responsible for student achievement. Home life, study habits, etc, etc all figure in.
What’s worse, she says, the state will become even more test oriented, all of its goals targeted toward test results.
"The students may learn test taking skills, but they don’t learn how to generalize what they have learned to new situations," she said. "Thus, even when state reading scores go up in response to intensive coaching, national test scores remain flat."
We have had a few small victories. We forced Charlie Crist to cancel a funraiser at a Country Club in Jupiter because there were going to be too many teachers protesting his approval of the legistlation. We got an AP article. One protest I attended here in Miami got coverage on Channel 7 News, the original home of Rick Sanchez.
We even got Jeb Bush to buy television ads in an attempt to spread lies about us.
We will not win this battle. The law will be passed against the will of the people, partly because they moved the House vote up until tomorrow so we don't peel off any more Republicans.
Unfortunately, the White House seems to be against us. Arne Duncan made some sort of deal with the Republican DOE behind our backs.
The Florida Education Association wants transparency in the Race to the Top funding contest. Jeb Bush and the state Republicans lost the first round because they did not include teachers in their plans. We want to make sure that is still a requirement.
This is part of the letter we sent to Arne Duncan.
It is our understanding that there has been a conversation between the U.S. Department of Education and Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith about what would improve our chances. We feel very strongly that in order for Florida to be successful in the next round, all of the stakeholders in Florida need to be aware of the same information.
As you know, Florida is poised to pass some very controversial legislation in the next few days. We hope the representatives from your department that Commissioner Smith has been in contact with can make some time in the next 48 hours in order to brief the following: Florida School Boards Association, the Florida Association of District School Superintendents, the FEA, the Florida Parent-Teacher Association, the Chair of the House and Senate Education Committees, the Governor’s Office and the Florida Department of Education. The purpose of this briefing would be to ensure that there would be no misunderstandings about the guidance that your agency has or has not offered.
What we are hearing from Commissioner Eric Smith is at odds with what has been reported in the media as far as what Florida would have to do to ensure a successful grant application in the next phase of Race to the Top.
I urge you to bring everyone in the education community together who wish to see Florida succeed in obtaining the Race to the Top grant, and we urge you to have this briefing within the next day or two.
Each day that passes without a response makes the White House seem cozy with Jeb Bush. I hate to say that, but it is true. I adore President Obama and I will campaign for him again, but right now he is breaking our hearts.
And then I remember. I love my job. I get to teach wonderful young human beings how to be creative and express themselves as individuals.
Things are looking bleak, but we will NEVER give up on the children.