Session will focus on budget cuts, tenure, merit pay

How lawmakers handle budget cuts and school reform could change the face of education in Florida.

Senate Bill 6 dominated education news last year with efforts to abolish tenure for teachers and tie their pay to student test scores.

The contentious bill that galvanized teachers and unions in protest was passed by the Legislature and subsequently vetoed by then-Gov. Charlie Crist.

Tenure and merit pay are expected to dominate education policy again as lawmakers grapple with similar bills filed in the Senate and House.

But those are only some of the changes parents, teachers and children face. Having to deal with a projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall for next year, legislators are looking at drastic budget cuts and including education in the mix.

"We're facing this year, this fall, what I expect to be one of the most challenging times in public education in Florida in a long time," Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, vice chairman of the Senate Education Appropriations Subcommittee, said during a recent hearing.

"When you look at the budget proposal that's floating around, when you're looking at the cuts in funding are expected, there will be, in my opinion, far less personnel in schools next year than this year. Same amount of work, same amount of students."

Gov. Rick Scott has proposed reducing the state's funding for students by more than 10 percent, or about $703 per pupil.

The chairwoman of the House K-12 Education Appropriations Committee, Marti Coley, R-Marianna, says the governor's suggested education cut is "way too steep," but she acknowledges there will have to be cuts in education.

"This is not a game," she told fellow committee members at a pre-session hearing. "It is not a partisan exercise. It is one I need input from every single member. This keeps me awake at night."

Ideally, she said in an interview, she'd like to keep student funding its current level, but she added, "I don't know that it's possible."

Senate education budget chairman David Simmons is likewise looking for ways to reduce spending that he hopes don't take away from the schools' core responsibilities.

One avenue Simmons is exploring would modify the way the state measures class sizes, lowering the numbers of classes that are included in caps created in a 2002 constitutional amendment and giving districts more flexibility to exceed the caps after an annual count in October. Simmons maintains his proposals could save the state upwards of $70 million a year.

Lawmakers say they may also consider legislation expanding charter schools and virtual education, with one idea being floated to require every high school student in the state to enroll in at least one online class.

Teachers and union leaders are more willing to work toward education reforms lawmakers are proposing this legislative session, but they're still leery of the bills introduced last month.

SB 736 goes before the full Senate for vote on Wednesday. Like the House proposal, it calls for tying 50 percent of teachers' evaluation to student learning gains on statewide assessments and end-of-year exams.

Both bills weaken tenure, the practice of offering job protections for teachers with seniority. Teachers hired on or after July 1 would be eligible, instead, for annual professional service contracts.

Educators who have tenure could keep it, lawmakers say, but language in both bills would make it easier to fire them.

University officials are expecting cuts, knowing they're losing the stimulus grants that boosted their budget last year by about 4 percent.

They won't know how much more they may lose until later this month, when revenue analysts release their reports, but they're somewhat optimistic, said University of South Florida's government relations director Mark Walsh.

"I know legislators want to keep the universities as fully funded as possible," he said. "They view the university system as an avenue to grow and create jobs."

Lawmakers' efforts on pension reform also show that many of them want to avoid cuts to faculty income, Walsh said. "Highly desired faculty are getting offers from all over the U.S. and the world."

At the same time, however, lawmakers "have a lot of needs to meet and a lot to balance," Walsh said. So if revenues come in drastically lower than expected, there could be some pain on the campuses.