New teachers will be paid based on student performance

Florida Gov. Rick Scott was able to deliver on a series of campaign promises with the very first bill he signed into law -- an overhaul of the education system meant to reward good teachers and punish bad ones.

SB 736, which passed the Senate 26-12 on March 10, 2011, and the House 80-39 less than a week later, would tie teachers' raises for the first time to how their students perform in the classroom. It's similar but not as stringent as a bill passed by the Legislature but vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist during the 2010 legislative session.

The bill, which Scott signed into law on March 24, is consistent with what he promised during his campaign for governor.

"We need to support our hard-working, dedicated teachers who understand the importance of getting good results. I believe we should hold people accountable for those results and when they produce, they should be rewarded," Scott posted on his campaign website. "In business, we judge that by the quality of work people produce. In the same way, a 'merit pay' plan would reward high-performing teachers and hold school administrators accountable, while under-performing teachers would be challenged to improve."

Under the law, current teachers would have the option of keeping their current standard salary schedule or would be able to opt into the new "performance" play plan. All new teachers would enter the performance system.

Starting in 2014, teachers under the performance plan would be rated "highly effective," "effective," "needs improvement" or "unsatisfactory." Three years of student test scores would make up 50 percent of the rating, which would then correspond to a raise -- or not.

Teachers who rate "highly effective" would receive the biggest raises, and teachers who rate "needs improvement" or "unsatisfactory" would receive no raise at all.

The bill also prohibits schools from setting different salary schedules for teachers with advanced degrees, unless the advanced degree is in the teacher's area of certification. And it requires school districts to offer salary supplements for educators teaching in under-performing schools and in critical teacher-shortage areas. You can read the entire proposal here.

There are questions over where the money will come from to pay for the raises, and what the raises for high-performing teachers will be. But a system that pays teachers based on student performance is now in place. We rate this Promise Kept.