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New Merit Pay Plan Still Draws Criticism

By BILL KACZOR, The Associated Press

Published: September 17, 2007

TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Legislature's new and improved teacher merit pay plan may have passed with grudging union support, but teachers still don't like it and some school districts have declined to participate, turning down millions of dollars in state bonus money.

The Merit Awards Program is drawing some of the same complaints as the Special Teachers Are Rewarded program that it replaced in March.

Proponents say the plan is a way to reward outstanding teachers for their work, but critics say it undermines teamwork by pitting teacher against teacher in a scramble for a limited number of bonuses. They say it's unfair and inaccurate to use a single high-stakes test to determine who gets the extra money.

'I hate it,' said Portia Weisfeld, a kindergarten teacher at Peskoe Elementary School in Homestead. 'I don't think teaching is a competitive activity. Teaching should be a cooperative activity.'
Weisfeld said teachers don't trust the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and alternate exams given for subjects not covered by FCAT.

'Every year we get a different kind of class,' she said. 'You don't know what's troubling each child. No matter what they scored last year, this year their parents might get divorced. They might not score so high.'

Teachers and their unions also say merit pay should be put on hold until base salaries are increased to the national average. Florida is about $6,000 below par, according to the Florida Education Association, the statewide teachers union.

The criticism doesn't faze merit pay supporters. They include Gov. Charlie Crist, the state Board of Education and MAP's sponsors in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

'Those who will always oppose paying teachers more money based on performance will oppose the Merit Award Program just as they would oppose any other plan,' said Sen. Don Gaetz, one of its architects.

Gaetz, R-Niceville, said changes will be made to improve the program but that it will not be shelved.

The old program, though, was so reviled by teachers and local school officials that the Legislature replaced it less than a year after it was adopted and before the first STAR checks went out.

'It was a mindless, confusing, top-down mandate,' said Gaetz, a former Okaloosa County school superintendent.

Changes In Merit Pay System

STAR was supposed to pay 5 percent bonuses to 25 percent of the state's teachers based heavily on standardized test results.

MAP reduced the reliance on testing but only somewhat - 60 percent of MAP is based on testing with the remaining 40 percent based on principal evaluations. It gives school districts more flexibility, and it was developed after consultation with the Florida Education Association, which endorsed the new program as an improvement. Still, some local unions have balked.

William J. Slotnik has studied school merit pay as executive director of the nonprofit Community Training and Assistance Center in Boston. He said the concept has potential but agrees MAP has serious flaws.

'It needs to be developed with teachers, not done to teachers,' Slotnik said. 'If the plan is largely based on a single high-stakes assessment, it will be difficult, regardless of the construct, to gain the support of teachers.'

Other tests students take could be added to the mix, he said.

Rep. Joe Pickens, who worked closely with Gaetz on the new program, said another alternative that has been discussed is using test results from more than a single year.

'Rather than being awarded on a snapshot, it's awarded on the basis of a movie,' said Pickens, R-Palatka.

Slotnik said the competition that irks teachers so much could be eliminated by giving merit pay to everyone whose students show improvement, not just the top few. That will cost more, but Pickens said it's something he'd like to do if the state's financial situation improves.

Florida now is facing a $1.1 billion shortfall in anticipated tax revenue for the budget year that began July 1, and lawmakers are planning spending cuts to make up for those losses.

The Legislature appropriated $147.5 million in last year's budget for bonuses not paid until late August under a transitional mix of STAR, MAP and pre-existing local criteria. School districts, though, couldn't spend more on local programs than they did in the prior year and some simply declined to participate.

As a result about $24 million will be returned to the state treasury, according to the Florida School Boards Association.

Lawmakers appropriated another $147.5 million this year, but it might be cut from the budget as a cost-saving measure, Gaetz and Pickens said. That wouldn't delay the program, though. Bonus checks for this school year won't be sent until after July 1, so they could be paid out of next year's budget, Gaetz said.

14 Districts Not Participating

School districts, meanwhile, must submit their first pure MAP plans for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 school years by Oct. 1. Acting Education Commissioner Jeanine Blomberg will review them for compliance with the MAP law, and districts then will have a chance to make changes if necessary.

So far, 14 of Florida's 67 districts and their local teachers unions have decided against participating, turning down more than $29 million for 2007-08, said School Boards Association executive director Wayne Blanton.

'It tells us that we've got to go back to the drawing board,' Blanton said.

Several other districts are undecided, including Miami-Dade County, Florida's largest with nearly 25,000 teachers. Miami-Dade remains at impasse over $20 million in merit pay after United Teachers of Dade rejected the district's MAP plan.

'The very concerns we had regarding STAR were continued in a milder form in MAP,' said the local union's president, Karen Aronowitz, a language arts teacher. 'Teachers think it is not fair, and they are disgusted with it.'

PLAN REJECTED

School districts that have decided not to participate for the 2007-08 academic year in Florida's new Merit Award Program, which offers bonuses to teachers based largely on standardized test results, and the amount of state money each is turning down:

•Baker County, $250,000

•Bay County, $1.4 million

•Charlotte County, $934,000

•Gulf County $105,000

•Highlands County, $640,000

•Lafayette County, $52,000

•Leon County, $1.77 million

•Okaloosa County, $1.6 million

•Okeechobee County, $384,000

•Orange County, $10.3 million

•Osceola County, $2.9 million

•Polk County, $4.9 million