Re-signing SB7070 Probably Won’t Make Teachers Like it Any Better.

Does anyone remember all the way back to May 9th? Governor DeSantis stood in front of a crowd of kids at William A. Kirlew Junior Academy, in Miami Gardens, and told the kids how great they looked in their uniforms. He then celebrated the signing of SB7070, which, among other things, revamped the Best and Brightest Teachers Bonus program and established the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program, a new voucher to private, mostly religious, schools with direct funding from state tax revenue. They called it a historic day.

Photo from WPTV 5/22/19.

Yesterday (May22) was less historic. Yesterday, at Lake Park Elementary, a public school in Palm Beach County, Governor DeSantis gathered a handful public school teachers and students and celebrated his new and improved Best and Brightest Teacher Bonus program by pretending to sign SB7070 again. “The number one indicator for student success is having a high quality teacher. We want to make sure that we’re rewarding teachers for a job well done” he said. His revamped teacher bonus program removed the previous ACT/SAT requirements for bonus eligibility.

Pulling out a pen and ceremoniously signing a bill he had already signed, to great celebration, less than two weeks ago, is an embarrassing political ploy. Reportedly, the Governor was irritated by reporters at the event who were asking why teachers aren’t happy with the new bonus programs. Perhaps his time would have been better spent sitting down with a few public school teachers and listening.

The original Best and Brightest Teachers Bonus program was the “brainchild” of then Representative, Erik Fresen, who claimed he got the idea from a book he read at the airport. That plan, passed by sneaking the language into the 2015 budget conforming bill after never being heard in the Senate (where it was considered too “stupid”), rewarded teachers who were evaluated as highly effective and scored high on achievement tests they took when they were in high school. Yes, you read that correctly, they rewarded adult teaching professionals if they scored high enough on the SAT/ACT when they were 17 years old. After the bill’s passage, the program was widely lampooned as being the “worst and dumbest.”

After 2 decades of continued defunding of public education in Florida, Florida’s teachers’ salaries have dropped to 46th in the nation. For years, teachers’ groups have advocated for a need for increased salaries rather than bonuses. Bonuses, they say, are unreliable, heavily taxed, have no impact on teacher pensions and are assigned based on arbitrary metrics. While, tying bonuses to scores on tests teachers took when they were 17 was really “stupid,” DeSantis’ new plan of tying those same bonuses to increases in Florida’s School Grade calculations, is also arbitrary and, inherently, unfair.

The new Best and Brightest program eliminates the ACT/SAT scores and, instead, awards “highly effective” or “effective” teachers who are “currently teaching in a school that has demonstrated academic improvement, as evidenced by the school improving an average of three percentage points or more in the percentage of total possible points achieved for determining school grades over the prior 3 years.” Though poorly written, the intent was to award teachers if their school’s grade increased an average of 1% per year over the previous 3 years. The 1% increase is arbitrary and will results in many highly qualified teachers, even those working in high scoring “A” schools, being ineligible for the bonus.

Also, since we know school grades correlate with their community’s socio-economic level, tying bonuses to school grades will, likely, further dis-incentivize teaching in our neediest, most struggling schools.

A simple comparison of the school grade calculation for Elementary schools and high schools will demonstrate just how arbitrary and unfair the “1% increase” is.

Elementary School Grades are calculated entirely on test scores in 5th grade Science and 3rd, 4th and 5th grade Math and English/Language Arts (ELA). Learning gains are calculated for 4th and 5th graders in Math and ELA. Teachers teaching Kindergarten through 2nd grade have no immediate impact on the school grade. Social Studies, Arts, Music or other subjects have no direct impact. The total number of points possible in the Elementary School Grades model is 700. (1% of 700 = 7)

High School Grades are a bit more complicated. The maximum number of points in the High School Model is 1,000. (1% of 1,000 = 10). High school grades are calculated based on the previous year’s graduation rate and the percentage of seniors who passed one AP/IB/AICE test or a dual enrollment class or earned an industry certificate. The other 8oo points are based on test scores: specifically, passage rates in state mandated Biology and U.S. History exams, performance on 9th and 10th grade ELA state assessments and performance on Algebra 1 and Geometry state assessments. Learning gains are calculated for 9th and 10th graders in ELA. Math learning gains are completely nonsensical as they are calculated by comparing Algebra 1 performance with 8th grade Math performance and, also, by comparing performance on a Geometry test with a student’s performance on an Algebra exam. High school juniors and seniors barely contribute to the school grade calculation. Social studies and Science course, outside of Biology and U.S. History, and all other electives have little to no impact (outside of “acceleration success”).

In addition, since school grades are calculated based on the percentage of children who pass a given test, larger school will be at a disadvantage because it is more difficult to make major percentage change movements in larger student populations. For example, a 400 student elementary school would require improvement in 4 students to get the same 1% increase that would required 30 students to improve in a 3,000 student high school.

While some might argue that school grades give a snap shot of how a school is performing, tying teacher bonuses to a 1% increase in the calculations is a clear case of accountabaloney.

Of course, one could say ANYTHING would be an improvement over Rep. Fresen’s Worst and Dumbest plan, but Governor DeSantis’ scheme is only slightly better. We encourage Governor DeSantis to spend less time creating fake bill-signing photo ops, celebrating arbitrary bonuses, and more time trying to understand why teachers are less than thrilled with this latest bonus scheme. Florida’s teachers are leaving the profession in droves. Gimmicks won’t improve that; funding professional salaries might. Less politicking, more honest listening needed.