Posted: April 07, 2010

You've heard about SB 6/HB 7189. Below are some key components.

- SB6 takes away often-needed employment protections for public school teachers.

- The bill eliminates professional contracts that teachers now qualify for after three years of successful work in the classroom. In their place, teachers would be offered annual contracts, which would subject the instructors to being terminated without cause or due process rights.

- SB6 would base all teachers’ future salary increases primarily on students’ learning gains as determined by the students’ performance on Florida’s controversial standardized test, the FCAT, and for some subject matters, on yet-developed end-of-course exams. Based on student performance, teachers will be categorized in four areas: highly effective, effective, needs improvement, unsatisfactory. Only teachers determined to be “highly effective” or “effective” would be eligible for a pay raise.

- The bill eliminates the ability of administrators to use a new teacher’s advanced academic degree (such as a Master’s degree or a doctorate) or their teaching experience as factors in setting their base salary.

- Teachers hired after July 1 would not be eligible for the current 7-percent salary bonus for obtaining the prestigious National Board Certification.

- Some say SB6 will be especially hurtful to special education instructors since their students face greater challenges in showing learning gains.

- Teachers would lose their teaching certificate if their students fail to show learning gains in four out of five years. No other state has such a punitive provision.

- The bill gives the Florida Department of Education unprecedented authority to withhold 5 percent of all school districts education funding to force the districts to revise their contracts to comply with these new teacher assessment standards.