Gnashing of Teeth over Florida's Best and Brightest Continues

The Crab Mentality:  If one crab is on the verge of escaping the bucket, the others in the bucket pull him back in...

Yes, there is HUGE gnashing of teeth by special interests over the idea of paying bonuses to some, but not all, teachers.

....Yet the Senate Pre-K Education sub-committee passed this bill that would do just this out of committee with a substitute amendment today.

Sure, there is no perfect system for rating/ranking teachers, and everybody knows this.  As a result, when it comes to rewarding great teachers no system satisfies everybody.  And no system ever survives the wrath of the guardians of the status quo, the "one potato for you, one potato for you everyone is equal devoid of seniority" types.

The perfect becomes the enemy of the good, and the ball does not move forward.  Or it does very slowly and sputteringly as was the case with 2007's Merit Award Plan, which was passed and signed by the Governor with great fanfare yet only implemented in 9 of 67 counties the first year, and subsequently killed two years later.

So now comes the "Best and Brightest" award, an approach that looks backward at college entrance scores and rewards teachers who did well on their ACT and or SAT scores.  An interesting approach that rewarded those teachers who applied and met the criteria with $10,000 bonuses, this idea is HATED by the teacher's unions because it does not reward every teacher equally.

And now the detractors come with every possible complaint and problem imaginable with this bill.

Newsflash--it is not perfect, but it will help keep those high achieving students who stick with teaching as a career--it will keep them motivated to stay in the profession.  This isn't the be all, end all, we can still look for ways to reward all teachers.

But in the meantime, we should find ways to keep these bright teachers in our classrooms, as we work on raising all salaries and finding improved ways to recognize great teachers.

Let's not channel the crabs in a bucket mentality here, where the group keeps any and all from escaping the bucket because they can't.

I want to find every way possible for us to recognize, reward, and pay the great salaries and bonuses to the great teachers who go into, and stay, in one of the most important jobs in our nation---educating students!

School Recognition Money Bonuses--Clock is Ticking for Local Schools to Develop Their Plans....

The state of Florida's Department of Education is extremely tardy this year with respect to assigning school letter grades to individual schools.  This is problematic for many reasons, one of which affects or has the potential to affect teacher bonus paychecks.

Those schools that make and maintain an "A" letter grade-- or improve their school letter grade based upon student test scores---earn recurring, yearly lottery-funded cash bonuses for their schools.

(This is why the idea of assigning "I" or "incomplete" for all schools this year due to numerous testing snafus was roundly criticized by teachers at schools that earn these bonuses regularly)

School advisory committees for each school set plans for how this money is to be distributed.

Schools can do one of three things with this money:  Pay staff bonuses, buy instructional materials or aids, or pay for supplemental teachers to come into the school to help students.

Statewide, roughly 90% of the bonus money ends up going toward staff bonuses.

Not surprisingly, the creation of these plans sometimes becomes heated and controversial.  Let's face