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Experts' Advice On School Funding Divisive

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By ADAM EMERSON

aemerson@tampatrib.com

Published: March 22, 2009

To lift its education system out of a darkening economy, the state lined up three academic advisers with first-rate credentials.

But critics say the advice they've provided has been drawn from the Republican playbook.

"Minimize" expensive tenure policies that favor highly paid teachers. Strengthen programs that tie teacher pay to school performance. Rein in expensive class-size requirements. And expand school choice options.

The report, Sustaining Progress in Times of Fiscal Crisis, has inflamed partisan tensions between the state education officials who favor the ideas and the teachers union that condemns them.

"There is a saying that 'a crisis is a terrible thing to waste,' and the political motives of those championing this report are transparent," said Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association.

The background of the researchers has done little to calm the reaction.

Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West serve as faculty at Harvard University's Program on Education Policy and Governance. Former Gov. Jeb Bush serves as the chairman of the program's advisory committee. Peterson and West also led the education transition team for Charlie Crist after he was elected governor.

The third scholar, Eric Hanushek, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank based at Stanford University in California.

The Florida Education Foundation paid them $31,000 to complete the work. No state money was used, said state Education Department officials.

Despite their affiliations, West said in an interview last week that politics played no part in their conclusions.

"We took a look at what the state has done in education policy in recent decades, what the results seem to have been and what we can learn from that," said West, who's also an assistant professor of education and public policy at Brown University.

Florida is well positioned to provide incentives that promote higher achievement among students and eliminate expensive policies that do not, according to the report.

Some school districts, including Hillsborough, already have merit-pay programs for teachers. Peterson, West and Hanushek say Florida should consider similar pay scales for principals and other school-level administrators.

They also say that "if workforce reduction is necessary," the state should "minimize" policies that take "last hired, first fired" approaches to keeping teachers and opt instead for policies that retain the best.

The Legislature also should consider asking voters to amend the state Constitution, reining in the most stringent requirements of Florida's class-size law.

And the state should expand school choice options that yield savings for taxpayers, particularly a program that bankrolls private school vouchers with corporate taxes.

Many of the proposals already have found their way into legislation, including a Republican measure that would weaken tenure policies and make it easier for schools to fire bad teachers.

The measure passed along party lines last week in the House PreK-12 Policy Committee.

The state's leading Republicans favor the bill's progression.

"The research is clear - effective teachers produce the greatest learning gains and motivate their students to reach for the stars," said Patricia Levesque, executive director of Jeb Bush's Foundation for Florida's Future.

Democrats have responded with their own ideas on how to raise money for schools, including a proposal to increase the sales tax by a penny for three years, generating $3.5 billion.

The scholars' report, though, gained a lot of currency last week with the state Board of Education, which commissioned the study.

"For the sake of our state's future, the educational priority for Florida must remain the same - providing an environment that fosters high academic achievement for all of our students," said Willard Fair, chairman of the state Board of Education.

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