Florida Senate approves teacher tenure bill

A controversial bill eliminating teacher tenure and basing pay largely on student performance took a major step toward becoming law Thursday, passing the state Senate on a near-party-line vote.

The bill now heads to the House, which is expected to pass it next week. Gov. Rick Scott has suggested he won't veto the bill.

It eliminates tenure for Florida public school teachers and sets up a pay plan based largely on student performance on tests.

The vote of 26-12 followed about an hour of debate, but the outcome was never in doubt.

"I can count the votes, and I know that the bill is going to pass today," said Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, one of only two Republicans to vote no - Dennis Jones of Seminole was the other.

Gary Siplin of Orlando was the only Democrat in favor. Democrat Larcenia Bullard and Republican Garrett Richter were absent, Bullard for health reasons and Richter to attend a funeral.

Representing the Tampa Bay area, Democrat Arthenia Joyner voted no along with Jones, while Republicans Mike Fasano, Jack Latvala, Ronda Storms, Jim Norman and JD Alexander voted yes.

The bill is based on last year's Senate Bill 6, passed by the Legislature but vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist after a massive protest by the state's teachers and public education advocates.

Despite some changes, legislators and others jokingly called it "Son of 6."

The House will consider its version in a pair of unusual late-night sessions next week - 2:45 p.m. to 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, and 1 p.m. Wednesday until 1 a.m. Thursday - if necessary to accommodate debate.

House GOP spokeswoman Katie Betta said the sessions were scheduled to allow the same amount of time spent debating last year's version. She said the 60-day legislative session is too short, with too much pending business, to schedule that amount of time during normal working hours.

On Thursday, the House Education Committee passed that chamber's version of the bill earlier in the day, also in a party-line vote.

The committee approved one amendment from bill sponsor Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, saying teachers can get extra pay for earning advanced degrees only if the degrees are in their area of certification - aligning the House bill with the Senate version.

Republicans stopped amendments offered by Democrats in the House committee, and by Democrats and two Republicans -- Thad Altman of Melbourne and Evelyn Lynn of Ormond Beach -- in the Senate.

The amendments would have:

• Allowed for three-year contracts for top teachers in some instances instead of the year-to-year contracts required in the bill.

• Allowed school administrators to take into consideration students' socio-economic status, based on eligibility for free or reduced-price lunches, in measuring their academic gains. The measurements will be used to evaluate teachers.

•Made student gains only 35 percent of teacher's evaluations, in line with federal recommendations, instead of 50 percent.

House Democrats acknowledged their amendments had no chance.

"Seems like it's hard for you to hear us," said Rep. Betty Reed, D-Tampa, in the House committee. "Seems like it's hard to be heard."

Dockery said those issues all figured in her decision to vote against the bill in the Senate despite her stance in favor of eliminating tenure and basing pay on performance.

She also objected to the bill sponsors' refusal to apply the bill to private schools that receive state tuition vouchers.

"If we want to keep the best teachers, why not give them three-year contracts?" she said. "If this policy is what we believe is the right one, why not apply it universally, to every school that gets state money?"

But her biggest objection, she said, was that "it's absolutely not paid for."

With significant cuts looming in education funding, she said, the bill includes no money for devising and applying the tests and measurements for student achievement in classes as diverse as art, physical education and calculus, and for providing extra pay for teachers with high student gains.

The state expects to get some $700 million in federal stimulus money as result of enacting the program, but Dockery said that money will be temporary, and the costs permanent.

"They're saying miraculously, somewhere down the road, we're going to get the money?"

The legislative bill analysis doesn't include projected costs.

Backers and opponents both cited the Hillsborough schools, exempt from most of the bill's requirements because they're already enacting similar changes.

But Hillsborough has the help of a $100 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. School system consultant and former administrator Jim Hamilton said that's in addition to scores of millions more in school system money.

Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich called the bill "an unfunded mandate" for other districts, and said it was part of a Republican attempt to undermine unions, including the teachers' union.

Attorney Ron Meyer with the state teachers union told the House committee the bill's one-year contracts, making all teachers unemployed at the end of each school year, will destroy job security, and that layoffs will be based not on student learning gains; but on "whatever a principal decrees."

But proponents said the bill would provide recognition that the best teachers deserve and don't currently get.

"The proven track record is that we're failing," said Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton. "None of us in here has a job for life, unless you're a teacher," he added.

Retired Pinellas County teacher Jean Morris backed the bill in the House committee, saying excellent teachers "know they don't need tenure."

She said tenure "provides a safe haven for teachers who should choose another profession," and the bill will "celebrate our best teachers, offer them recognition and rewards for the work they do every day."

State Sen. Stephen Wise, R-Jacksonville, a retired teacher who got credit for crafting the bill based on last year's Senate Bill 6, said the same. "This bill ought to be a teacher's dream - to be able to get paid for student success, for the progress the student made."

State Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said opponents "are saying that teacher's property right to a job is more important than the students' constitutional right to learn."