Florida Loses out on $1 billion federal grant for schools
Palm Beach Post March 30, 2010. Re-reported from “Education Week”
Florida would have used the money to overhaul teacher evaluation and pay systems, using student achievement instead of years on the job to decide on pay raises and promotions.
The Florida Education Association objected to parts of the plan that would tie teachers’ pay to students performance on the FCAT.
A high school English teacher said that this failure will probably be viewed unfairly as another failure by the teachers. (emphasis added)
Earlier in 2010 the Palm Beach County School District attempted to introduce uniform test requirements to measure whether each student was learning during the year, when it is possible to help students needing help before they flunk out. The teachers union held mass demonstrations reminiscent of Obama’s ACORN Astroturf rallies, and killed that idea and got the man responsible for trying to improve education banished to a do-nothing position.
