Interim Committee Edition
February 11, 2011
There is an old song by Mary Chapin Carpenter running through my brain right now: Shut Up and Kiss Me. Not quite the Valentine message being sent by Sen. John Thrasher (R-Jacksonville) this past week, but part of it is true — he wants unions to shut up. SB 830 has been filed by Thrasher but it does not yet – at least as of a few minutes ago – have any committee references. This bill would silence unions that collect dues via employers through payroll deductions. If the bill passes, FEA would not be allowed to advocate for or against legislation, ballot initiatives or candidates — unless dues were collected through another means. Even if we avoided collecting dues through the districts some of the current bill language attempts to limit a union’s right to free speech.
We don’t know the fate of this bill until it starts moving through the process, but it is a shot across the bow at the very least.
If you haven’t made appointments to see your legislator or at the very least sent an email or make a call, get cracking! Session is right around the corner. Not sure what to say? Hold a “10-minute meeting” with him or her! And you don’t have seal the message with a kiss.
To read SB 830 go to: http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2011/0830/BillText/Filed/PDF
“Teacher Quality” bill passes committee
The new “teacher quality” bill—SB 736 sponsored by Sen. Stephen Wise (R-Jacksonville) passed the Senate Education Committee by a vote of 3-0. The sponsor has attempted to make the new bill better than last year’s SB 6, yet still we have numerous concerns. After more than 20 amendments were considered, the bill still will allow decisions about re-employment, especially for teachers hired after July 1, 2011 (or if you move into a new district), to be made at the whim of principals at the end of each annual contract year.
Oddly, the bill requires decisions regarding reduction in force (RIF) to be made only by considering evaluation ratings. Yet, a teacher hired after July 1, 2011, and who is no longer considered probationary, can be non-renewed without cause at the end of the year, even if she is rated as “highly effective” or “effective.”
The new bill:
· Ties teacher pay directly to student test scores according to an unknown “value added” formula.
· Regardless of “effective” or “highly effective” rating, new teachers rated may be fired at the end of their contract without any due process or just cause.
· Prohibits local districts from rewarding teachers who earn advanced degrees if the degree is out of field.
· Increases the number of tests that must be developed and given to every student every year.
· Shifts millions of scarce dollars to pay for these new tests.
· Does not provide any means of funding the new performance pay plan … except to cut or freeze existing salaries.
· Gives Tallahassee more control over our local schools.
Things to think about:
· No professional development components are included. Recent research reveals that when high-quality teachers leave the classroom, the effect on both student performance and school and district fiscal operations is significant and deleterious. The fiscal costs of teacher turnover are many and varied (cost of exit interviewer’s time, recruitment, hiring costs, advertising, new employee induction, training materials, salaries for substitutes, reduced teaching loads and mentoring).
· This bill will spur many new cases of litigation for school districts. This week, an independent arbitrator instructed the Washington, D.C., school district to reinstate 75 new teachers who were fired by then-D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee (now a for-profit education reformer) during their probationary period in 2008. The ruling state that the dismissals were improper because the teachers were not told the reasons for their dismissal. This will cost the district millions – and it could have easily been avoided.
· Florida has more history of performance-based pay than any other state … and we have a history of doing it. Since the late 1990s, Florida has wasted precious time, money, effort and political capital on schemes that have failed to produce any meaningful results. Millions of dollars have been wasted on developing or implementing Florida statute 1012.22, BEST, E-Comp, STAR, MAP and the first round application of Race to the Top. Why do they think this legislation will succeed unless we are willing to reflect on why all the others have failed? By the way, it wasn’t because of the teachers union!
· This bill doesn’t include any investment of additional resources or time to do it right. An infusion of new funds are required to build the infrastructure to begin to fairly and reliably align teacher evaluations to student performance. Without that investment this plan is nothing more than a redistribution of wealth … taking from many high quality teachers to give to other highly effective and effective teachers under an unknown, untested “performance pay” formula and system.
· The bill ignores the areas where Florida falls short. Over the past decade, Florida students have demonstrated improved achievement levels. The latest installment in Education Week’s Quality Counts report listed Florida as having the fifth best public school system in the nation. It was in 31st place in 2007, 14th place in 2008, in 10th place in 2009 and in eighth place last year. We look forward to increasing our rankings on the areas where Quality Counts says the state lags behind, like in properly funding and investing in our schools. Although Florida’s overall grade was a B-minus, Education Week gave it a C-minus in finance. Note: The report used data in the funding category from up to 2007. That means it did not cover the deep funding cuts that came later.
The House is expected to roll-out its version as a committee bill before the first day of session.
Note: A Proposed Committee Bill (PCB) is a proposal that represents a committee idea or project. When the idea is expanded and drafted into bill form, then the committee discusses and votes on the PCB. If it receives a favorable vote from the committee, the PCB is then filed and it becomes a bill.
Although the Committee Substitute (CS) has not yet been posted in the system at the time this report was compiled, you can see the bill at: http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2011/0736
Special thanks to the Student FEA teachers who observed Sen. Wise’s meeting and our members Gail Rager, Bev Kurak and Jennifer Barnhill for their powerful testimony in front of the committee.
TABOR
TABOR is like a bad penny, it keeps coming back. The Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) proposals are based in a concept advocated by conservative and free market libertarian groups as a way of limiting the growth of government – in other words: limiting state or local spending. TABOR proposals require that increases in overall tax revenue be tied to inflation and population increases unless larger increases are approved by a super majority vote of the legislature or citizen referendum. Sounds like a good idea, until it is put into law. Colorado voters passed this kind of revenue cap in 1992. The Colorado experience resulted in such disastrous outcomes that the voters of Colorado recently voted a five-year suspension of TABOR in order to provide the state an opportunity to recover.
Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 958 (formerly numbered SPB 7050) was discussed this week in the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Finance and Tax. The new proposal would replace a 16-year-old spending cap and revenue cap now found in the Florida Constitution. If passed by voters, state legislators beginning in 2014 could only exceed the cap with a supermajority vote.
This joint resolution would amend the Florida Constitution as follows:
· Replace the existing state revenue limitation, which is based on Florida personal income growth, with a new state revenue limitation based on changes in population and inflation.
· Place a new cap on state spending and revenue.
· Require excess revenues to be deposited into the Budget Stabilization Fund, used to support public education, or returned to the taxpayers.
· Authorize the Legislature to increase the revenue limitation by a supermajority vote.
· Authorize the Legislature to place a proposed increase before the voters, requiring approval by 60 percent of the voters.
If approved by the Legislature, the proposed amendment to the state constitution would be placed on the 2012 general election ballot (or on a special election ballot at an earlier date) and would require approval by 60 percent of the voters. If approved by voters, the new state revenue limitation would first apply to the state fiscal year 2014-15.
You can read the bill at: http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2011/0958/BillText/Filed/PDF
Governor Scott submits his budget proposal
The governor is required to submit a budget proposal each year about a month before the legislative session begins in March. It is his roadmap for his priorities — but more often than not his budget is a far cry from the actual appropriations bill created and passed into law by the House and Senate.
Yet, it is an interesting read and gives us a glimpse into the mindset of the new governor. It is also very interesting to watch what happens next – especially when you keep in mind that this governor was not the first choice of the Republican establishment. Republican and Democratic legislators began taking pot shots at the Scott’s spending plan as soon as it hit their desks.
Education took the biggest financial hit in Gov. Rick Scott’s state budget proposal. As recently as last week, Gov. Rick Scott was saying that education funding would be untouched in his budget proposal. We see a far different story after reviewing his budget numbers.
The governor plans to cut more than $3.3 billion from last year’s already lean education budget. Scott said he will cut $1.4 billion in property taxes, which is a primary source of funding for education. Scott also wants teachers, along with other state workers, to pay 5 percent towards their own pension. By the way, the governor changed the name of the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) to the Education Choice Fund reflecting his desire to allow funds to drift away from public education and into private education entities.
His proposed education budget highlights include:
· Per student spending for the next budget year under the governor’s proposal will be $300 to $703 less per student, which represents a possible cut of more than 10 percent.
· The governor’s plan to have employees contribute to their pension fund represents a 5 percent pay cut for every teacher, school employee and other state worker. These dollars will flow out of their communities to sit in the pension fund, which represents a real economic loss for every corner of Florida.
· The governor’s budget proposal eliminates thousands of State of Florida jobs – and will lead to the loss of thousands more throughout the state because of the smaller budget.
· Large funding cuts to class size.
· The budget reallocates the federal EduJobs money that came to the state in the current budget year, despite the fact that money was already distributed to the districts.
· The proposal calls for more vouchers, more charters, more charter conversions and more virtual education courses and programs and says nothing about the state’s paramount duty to a high-quality system of public education.
During the House Education Appropriations meeting, “That’s a 10-percent reduction. That’s pretty steep,” said Committee Chair Marti Coley (R-Marianna). The Governor’s Office explained that the decrease would be offset by a 6 percent funding increase — which is mostly made up by employee payments to the Florida Retirement, holding the actual per-student cut to $300.
After all the perplexing explanations, Rep. Martin Kiar (D-Parkland) asked the question we were all dying to ask: “How can you say you’re not cutting when you’re reducing per-student funding by $300?”
The answer: The governor isn’t cutting general revenue funds to education, just not replacing the federal stimulus funding.
The governor’s budget also removes $17.7 million in earmarks for School and Instructional Support Services and replaces it with $15 million in competitive grant funding. It also proposes that Development Disability Services funding of $13.9 million be converted to competitive grants, prompting a representative to question if the governor’s intention was to pit blind and autistic children against one another.
Still waiting for retirement
The retirement (FRS) or so called “pension reform” bill that we are all waiting for has not yet been filed. Senator Jeremy Ring (D-Margate) has indicated that following the introduction of pension reform bills early next week, he will hold a four-hour hearing next Friday morning (February 18) to receive public testimony on two bills (one addressing FRS issues, and one addressing local pension plan issues). We do believe that the FRS bill will require an employee contribution, make some change to the number of years for vesting and perhaps increase the number of years to compute final compensation. Stay tuned!
Thank you to Michael Monroe, Pat Dix and Kevin Watson for their contributions to this report!
Questions? Call FEA Public Policy Advocacy at 850.224.2078