Below is an announcement from the Volusia Teachers Association - the union for the Volusia County Florida Teachers. It describes legislation being considered that would rank teacher performance based upon FCAT (standardized test) scores. They would then publish the rankings in local newspapers. There are scores of problems with this, worst of which is its premise - which is that without public scrutiny, teachers won't perform.
Call this number, and tell these Nazis to take their plan and shove it up their asses!!
Dr. Christopher J. Colwell
Deputy Superintendent for Instructional Services
Phone: 386-255-6475, ext. 60010
Email: ccolwell@mail.volusia.k12.fl.us
The Solidarity Report
Your weekly VTO Update
Issue 3 Number 25a February 7, 2006
Special Edition
Teachers to Be Ranked
The Florida Department of Education will take up a proposed rule change at one of its upcoming meetings. This rule change will rank all teachers based on how well their students perform on the FCAT. This ranking will be made available to the public. The highest 10% of the rated teachers in the state will get a performance bonus.
Now if that is not bad enough, the new rule would require each district to set aside 5% of their salary pot. The district would also rank all the teachers in the district based on how well their students perform on the FCAT with the top 10% of teachers earning performance bonuses using the set aside.
This is a direct attack on teachers and our unions. This rule, should it be adopted, would impact our ability to negotiate salaries at the table. Further, the district would have to have assessments in place for all classes not covered by FCAT. It is important to know that there is no additional funding attached to this plan.
Can you image, being ranked based on test scores and that ranking being published in the paper? I am not sure how this fits into retaining teachers, but I certainly do not think this will help. Add this to Governor Bush's plan to retain teachers by giving every teacher a lap top, requiring differential pay, while at the same time the state is planning on giving away the huge surplus t instead of investing in our schools.