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Gaetz Backs Merit Pay For Teacher Salary Increases, Not Scott’s $2,500
March 6, 2013
Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said teachers deserve a pay raise, but prefers any increase to be based upon merit rather than Gov. Rick Scott’s proposed $2,500 across the board hike.
“We need to find a middle ground with the governor,” Gaetz said after the Senate session on Tuesday.
“I think that the governor understands that many of us who are acolytes of (former governor) Jeb Bush believe that there has to be some distinction drawn between she who does the best and he who does the worst. In our schools we don’t give all students Cs.”
House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, has previously expressed a similar preference instead of Scott’s proposal — one of Scott’s priorities for the session — that would cost $480 million.
In his State of the State address, Scott reiterated that teacher should be rewarded for the progress made in the state education system.
“Some say they are afraid that giving raises to all teachers may mean that a teacher doing a bad job gets rewarded,” Scott said. “But, thanks to our work, we are now in a better position than ever before to reward good teachers and move bad teachers out of the classroom.”
By The News Service of Florida
Comments
13 Responses to “Gaetz Backs Merit Pay For Teacher Salary Increases, Not Scott’s $2,500”
It would be a better situation if the system took individual teacher evaluations (made by the administration) into account versus actual student performance. The administrators have a much better knowledge of how each teacher functions as an instructor. Student performance is not a reliable basis for determining teacher effectiveness.
DONNA & NEWIDEAS couldn’t agree with you more! My son’s education is my highest priority and I do help the teachers when I am able without hesitation. Because the teachers that truly care about education dig into their own pockets.
DONNA, teachers as yourself are far, few, and in between. I am not sure what kind of program could be put in place, but one does need to be to reward the teachers who are deserving of their hard word and effort. Not all teachers deserve a raise of that magnitude or a raise at all.
NEWIDEAS, I would agree that if the pay is to be based on merit so should ALL the politicians positions. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander! And DONNA couldn’t be more correct on her statement “Merit pay for politicians sounds like the perfect solution to this discussion! If that were the case, all the financial woes in Washington would be corrected overnight!”
Merit pay for politicians sounds like the perfect solution to this discussion!!!!!! If that were the case, all the financial woes in Washington would be corrected overnight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tell me what do you mean “bad teacher”? Ten poeple would give ten different answers. A huge majority work hard, take their work home and then some.
What has happened over the last 30 years is that politicans have taken control of the schools. By the way, how are you doing with that. Strange how the generation of the past put man on the moon using mostly a slide rule.
Politics may not be the oldest profession but the results are the same.
AND IT WILL NOT CHANGE!
I’m with Donna!!! Not across the board raises, but they have to come up with a way to reward the teachers that are teaching and not just drawing a paycheck!! Just because a teacher has students that are failing does not make her/him a bad teacher you have to look at everything, some students may be having trouble at home and their head is not in school. All these dang Meth Labs that we have been hearing about with children in the homes could be a big part of the problem. We never know what is going on with a child at home and I’d say 99% of that reflects on the child at school!!! That’s my two cents…
To walnut hill roy
Im not a teacher, im in construction, i have friends that are teachers.
i leave my job at 5:00 every day, how many teachers leave there work at school
the truth be know very few, so you take the hours they put in divided by there
salaries an you have less than minimum wage…. i thank my teacher for teaching me
my trade.
I completely agree with Newideas. I hadn’t thought of grading legislators, though. Just thinking about it makes me shake my head. How do you effectively rate a teacher’s performance? Wouldn’t it be based upon personal observation of teaching in a classroom setting? A review of class plans and curriculum delivered? How about the number of parent conferences (and let’s not forget the ones that parents set and fail to keep)? And, the overtime talking to parents from home after sitting up late grading papers at the dinner table? I’m not a teacher, so I don’t know much about how to evaluate their performance, but one thing is certain, it’s not a simple process. A great teacher might work wonders with a class of low functioning students, just getting them to read a few words and write their own names. That doesn’t sound very impressive on the floor of the state senate, but it brings hope to a parent who desperately wants that child to be capable of doing something in life. Yes, there are poor teachers – I had a few growing up. Every industry has goldbricks and poor performers, but I believe measuring their performance is more complicated than an FCAT test.
Donna has some good ideas, My2cents doesn’t have aclue.(My opinion). First of all teachers shouldn’t be paid based upon merit until legislators are paid based on merit. Are all the legislators equal in how they run the government of Florida? I don’t think so. If we were to subject them to the same silly judgements that teachers are now subjected to this merit pay stuff would go away so fast you wouldn’t believe. One example, grade(for lack of a better word) the legislators on something they have no control over. Just like a teacher has no control over how prepared a student is for a stupid FCAT test. Grade them on a bill that they don’t like just because it passed in another committee. Just like teachers are graded on students that they never taught in a class. So Mr. Merit Pay Gaetz get out of Jeb Bush’s back pocket and his so called reform and come up with real soultions for education problems in Florida. You folks in Florida better start paying attention or you will paying a high price for what these folks in Tallahassee are doing to the school system.
Merit Pay, the way that the lawmakers have drawn it up, is not the best option. That punishes the teachers at lower level schools and rewards the teachers that are lucky enough to get at the A schools. Teacher A from PHS or Escambia might be a better teacher than Teacher B from Tate of West Florida, but teacher B would benefit more from merit pay because of the students at Tate and West Florida. Especially with the tests that the State has drawn up for the statewide testing. Dont be naive enough to think that just because a teacher is from Tate of West Florida that they have earned their way to those schools and are the better teachers. Especially at Tate its all about who you know, not what you have done. The teacher of the year for Escambia County but if you had her on merit pay based off of the school grade she would be a bad teacher on that scale. Step 1 was taking away tenure, unfourtunately alot of bad teachers are still on tenure because they were granted tenure before it was elimintated. In 10-15 years you will see the results of tenure being eliminated, because the teachers coming up will really have to be ahead of the game because they will never get tenure and have to earn their jobs every year anyways. In the old days once you recieved tenure you were set so you could take your foot off the gas and put it on cruise control. They need to find a happy medium between just giving money and basing the money off the statewide testing.
I couldn’t agree MORE with Senate President Don Gaetz about giving raises based on MERIT. Teachers do deserve a raise, but it should be based on performance alone, not how long they have been teaching. In order to base it on merit there should be a test put in motion to determine just how much knowledge they have gained over the years in teaching methods, behavioral issues, and etc. Then the raise should be based on a percentage not a dollar amount.
To Ha Ha
You just positively nailed it down. a good teacher will know when to use “there” and when to use “their”, you obviously don’t!
As an educator, I would love to have a $2500 raise. I feel that I would be one of the teachers that deserve it but there are so many that would be rewarded for failure. Merit pay is really the only way to go about rewarding exceptional teachers but it needs to be done sensibly. Just as the $2500 does not to be across the board, neither does an assessmet that determines how valuable a teacher is. There are so many factors and circumstances involved in determining how a teacher should be evaluated. Teachers who are in low performing schools are often penalized because of student performance but in many instances it s not the teacher, but the circumstances of the students. Our lawmakers need to walk a mile in our shoes (as do all the doubters who bash teachers) before they make decisions that can not be undone.
2,500 is still not enuf…. spend a day with a teacher there work doesnt stop when they leave school.