Hillsborough exempt from reforms

From TBO.com

by Sherri Ackerman and Elaine Silerstrint

TAMPA - It looks like Hillsborough County teachers will once again dodge a proposed state law to end tenure and tie their pay strictly to performance.

That's because Hillsborough stands alone among Florida's 67 counties with a special act that protects the practice of tenure, which grants employment protections to teachers who reach a level of seniority.

Two other counties enjoy that protection, too, but it's under challenge. Not in Hillsborough. The reason: Hillsborough is at least a year ahead of the rest of Florida on key education reforms, said state Sen. Steve Wise, an education leader in the Senate.

Wise, a Jacksonville Republican, has introduced a bill that would subject all Florida school districts to a plan Hillsborough created, a $205 million overhaul of the way teachers are hired, trained, evaluated and paid.

The Hillsborough County district's seven-year plan is funded by a historic $100 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"Hillsborough is going to be exempt because they have the Gates money," said Wise, chairman of the Senate's Pre-K-12 Education Committee. "They're doing the research. We believe what they're doing is the right direction to go."

So much so, Wise said, that the district will serve as a model for the state, "with a few minor exceptions."


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It's too early to tell what Wise's Senate Bill 736 will look like once it wends its way through the Senate and House. The bill got its first thumbs-up Thursday with a 3-0 vote by the Senate Pre-K-12 committee.

But Hillsborough school officials say they are pleased it allows the district to continue its work. They also are cautious about their unique exemption.

"This is the first draft of his bill and we certainly hope that will remain," David Steele, the district's chief information and technology officer and project director of the Gates grant, wrote in an e-mail to the Tribune.

Steele is concerned the bill is heavy on accountability of teachers but light on helping them succeed.

"Our evaluation system clearly has that mentoring piece for a reason," Steele said. "The district must ensure that teachers have the supports necessary to be successful."

Wise's bill is undergoing changes even before the Legislature convenes March 8 for its 2011 session. Here are some highlights of a recent version:

•School districts and the education department would create new evaluations and a pay scale that, by 2014, would be linked to student learning gains.

•Teachers would receive one of four ratings: highly effective, effective, needs improvement or developing, and unsatisfactory.

•Fifty percent of the evaluation would be based on student performance over a three-year period. The rest would rely on best practices and professional responsibilities.

•Parents would participate in teacher evaluations.

•Evaluations would factor-in student attendance, disciplinary records, disabilities and English language proficiency.

•Parents would be notified if their child's teacher is rated unsatisfactory three consecutive years or more.

Hillsborough's evaluation system is similar, except that by 2013, student performance will account for 40 percent of the overall review.

The remaining 60 percent will be divided equally between assessments by principals and by peers or mentors, who are assigned to observe and work with each teacher.


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The Hillsborough County school district was among the first in Florida to participate in the state's Merit Award Program, which offers financial rewards for teachers whose students have grown academically.

Originally, teacher performance levels were tied to a year's worth of student gains. Under the Gates plan, that measurement, eventually, will be stretched over three years.

In Hillsborough, education leaders are considering whether to include input from parents and students on future teacher evaluations.

"The logistics of including parents/students are difficult," Steele wrote. "I think they may write the bill thinking of a parent evaluating 'a' teacher."

In reality, he said, even elementary students have three to four teachers and a high school student has about 10.

"A parent with two high school students would have a difficult time evaluating 18 to 22 teachers, having never observed a lesson," Steele said.

Wise's bill, if approved, also would phase out tenure.

Teachers hired on or after July 1 would no longer be offered professional service contracts or tenure. Instead, they would receive a probationary contract and at least two evaluations the first year, then an annual contract that the district could choose to renew or not renew without cause.

No annual contract would be given if a teacher received two consecutive unsatisfactory evaluations, two unsatisfactory evaluations in a three-year period, or three "needs improvement" evaluations in a five-year period.

Current teachers and school administrators can choose to keep the salary schedule they have now or opt to participate in the new one. The new system allows them to earn more money faster. But they can't change their minds once they choose.


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Teachers who have tenure now can keep it, but Wise's proposal, weakens the protection.

Tenured teachers have always faced dismissal for "just cause," which includes admitting guilt of a crime. Under Wise's bill, two years of consecutive unsatisfactory evaluations would be considered a "just cause."

Some critics argue tenure protects bad teachers because their contracts are automatically renewed unless a superintendent charges them with unsatisfactory performance.

According to one legislative analysis, during the past two years in Florida, fewer than 1 percent of classroom teachers received an unsatisfactory evaluation.

Firing them can take months if not years and can be costly for districts.

Proponents of the practice say tenure isn't the problem.

"It's not the impediment to identify and get rid of an ineffective teacher," said Jean Clements, president of the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association.

Tenure merely ensures that the process of removing a teacher is fair, say supporters, who worry that without protections, the highest-paid teachers could be laid off to save money.

"What is important is the whole way that we support teachers," Clements said. "How we reflect on our practice, how to improve, how to see where to get better."

Clements has worked closely with Hillsborough school administrators and says tenure in the district will remain intact — at least for now.

Hillsborough County has had a special tenure act since 1941. The Legislature has reaffirmed it since then. S.B. 736 makes note of the special act as well as two others, in Volusia and Duval counties. Hillsborough's would be upheld, but the latter two would be repealed.

Hillsborough teachers can apply for tenure after three years as long as evaluations show they are effective in the classroom. District officials have said they can extend the probationary period to four years to weed out poor performers if necessary.


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Wise's proposal reintroduces some provisions of Senate Bill 6, a tenure-killing act adopted by the Legislature in its 2010 session but vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist.

The new bill, however, takes a different tack.

Titled the "Race to the Top for Student Success Act," it takes its name from the federal Race To The Top program, in which Florida won a $700,000 grant after agreeing to many of the reforms outlined in Wise's bill.

Also, Wise and other committee members called for input from teachers, administrators, union leaders and others — something that didn't happen with S.B. 6. Teachers across the state rallied for its defeat.

But like its predecessor, S.B. 736 doesn't clearly define how to measure student learning gains for teachers in courses harder to quantify. These include art, music and special education.

The issue is of special concern to Gov. Rick Scott, who says his daughter is a special education teacher.

Hillsborough brought in experts from the University of Wisconsin to address this challenge with "value-added" measurements, Steele said. It's a work in progress, but the district is on track to roll out those evaluations by Aug. 31, he said.

The fear of value-added measurements is that if they don't work, they will ultimately harm the profession.

"Don't screw it up," Sarasota Classified Teachers Association President Pat Gardner warned Wise and the senate education committee Wednesday in Tallahassee. "If you evaluate teachers with value-added tables that don't work, you're going to lose the best teachers.

"And they won't come back," she said. "Everybody out there will know, don't go to Florida."

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