Appeals Court To Hear Performance Pay Challenge

February 12, 2014

A Tallahassee-based appeals court will hear arguments March 11 in a constitutional challenge to a 2011 law that linked teacher pay and evaluations to student performance. The 1st District Court of Appeal on Friday set the hearing date, according to an online docket.

A Leon County circuit judge in May upheld the law — dubbed the “Student Success Act” — and rejected arguments that it violated constitutionally guaranteed collective-bargaining rights and that lawmakers had given too much decision-making power to the state Board of Education.

A group of teachers, backed by the Florida Education Association, filed the challenge.

The appeal centers on a constitutional separation-of-powers issue about whether lawmakers delegated too much authority to the Board of Education in coming up with a system to measure teacher performance.

“The issue presented in this case is not whether the statutory standards provided are sufficiently specific; the issue is whether it is permissible for a statute to delegate a policy decision to the executive branch with no standards at all,” attorneys for the teachers argued in an October brief.

But the state’s attorneys responded in a December brief that the teachers were asking the appeals court to “disregard well established law to require the Legislature to enact statutes which leave no room for analytical discretion. This is not a requirement under the federal or Florida Constitution.”

by The News Service of Florida

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News