Senate Bill 6: Put Up or Shut Up, Senator Thrasher

It should not surprise anyone that I, a public school teacher, am adamantly against the new education bill, Senate Bill 6, currently being debated in Tallahassee. Its sponsor, State Senator John Thrasher, believes that by eliminating incentives and bonuses for highly qualified teachers and by basing 50% of all teachers’ salaries on the test scores of children that he will be able to bring public education in Florida to utopian levels. As a logical person, I disagree.


Mind you, I don’t disagree with accountability. Not in the least bit. In fact, let’s forget about SB6 eliminating funding for National Board teachers in Florida—a group of teachers that this same legislative body acknowledged in state statute 1012.72 that, “The Legislature finds that the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) has established high and rigorous standards for accomplished teaching and has developed a national voluntary system for assessing and certifying teachers who demonstrate teaching excellence by meeting those standards.” And let’s forget about districts being forced to eliminate incentives for teachers with graduate degrees. And let’s forget about educating the whole child rather than merely serving as a test prep service. Let’s forget all that for a moment and focus on accountability.

I believe that all people who receive their salaries from taxpayer dollars must be held accountable for their jobs. As a teacher, I fall into that category. As a State Senator, so does John Thrasher. Apparently, my salary should be tied to my areas of accountability (student safety, learning gains, writing ability), and Mr. Thrasher’s salary should likewise be tied to his areas of accountability (unemployment, state economy, beach erosion). Now I know that some people will scoff at the idea of a politician being accountable for unemployment and the state economy and beach erosion because there are many outside contributing factors to each of those issues. Surely, Mr. Thrasher could not have foreseen the recession that swamped the state and forced thousands of residents to lose their jobs. Nor could he have predicted the crash of the housing market in Florida that sent the economy of the state tumbling. And he certainly could not have prevented myriad storms that relentlessly ate away at the golden sands of our glorious beaches. I mean those are mitigating factors that are completely out of the good senator’s hands. Variables, if you will.

But as a teacher, my variables are ignored by Mr. Thrasher. He ignores the fact that as a middle school language arts teacher I see an individual child for 53 minutes a day. That’s 4.2% of that child’s day if you round up the time to an hour. Leaving 95.8% of his or her day left to outside variables. I have no control over the child’s diet, bed time, amount of time in front of a television, enforcement of homework activities, time on the streets, truancy, or family vacations taken for weeks at a time in the middle of the school year. I have no control over whether that child will stay out until three in the morning the night before the FCAT, or spend hours in an ER due to an abusive parent. I certainly cannot control the fact that the FCAT Writing test takes place in February, a mere 96 full school days into the year. Nor can I control the subjective nature of the grading of this exam or the mood of the single individual who will be grading it.

These are my variables, and I cannot control them any more than a politician can control the economic environment or the amount of sand on our beaches. But that’s alright. Accountability is the name of the game and I’m willing to play, variables and all. How about you, Mr. Thrasher? Are you willing to play? I hope so. After all, fair is fair when it comes to taxpayer money, and you and I have the same employer. Shouldn’t we be held to the same standards?