LEGISLATURE WILL LOOK AT PLAN TO END TEACHER TENURE

A sweeping plan to make it easier to fire teachers and put a bigger spotlight on teacher quality is headed to the Florida Legislature. A top priority for one of former Gov. Jeb Bush's education foundations, the plan would essentially gut teacher tenure, a status encoded in state law that gives teachers special protections against firing. Instead of permanent "professional service" contracts, teachers would get annual contracts for the first 10 years, then contracts of no longer than five years after that, according to draft legislation obtained by The St. Petersburg Times. The plan would apply only to teachers hired after July 2009. It would not affect the 170,000 teachers currently in the system. "We can pass a ton of reform, but if we don't have a quality teacher in front of the classroom, it doesn't matter," said Rep. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, who will sponsor the legislation in the House. The reaction from the state teachers union foreshadows a bitter fight. Florida teachers are already chafing under a test-heavy accountability system, salaries below the national average and deep budget cuts, said union spokesman Mark Pudlow. "And now on top of that you have the idea that we want to take away rights from teachers?" he asked. The same bill would put teeth into a state law that requires school districts to boost teacher pay in high-poverty schools. Another provision would require the state to report how many teachers in each district oversee "declines in student performance" over several years. But the proposed erosion of teacher tenure will dominate debate. At issue are state rules that unions say protect teachers from vindictive administrators but that critics say more often keep bad teachers on the job. Many principals say it takes too much time and paperwork to fire an ineffective teacher and that, as a result, those teachers are either tolerated or shuffled to other schools.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/article975946.ece
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Thanks to Mark Pudlow for the clip and the lead.