Senate President Don Gatez, public school teachers won’t be on an even playing field

This man oozes contempt for public schools and public school teachers and this was very evident in his recent remarks in a State Impact article by Gina Jordan. http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2013/02/15/florida-senate-president-says-teachers-shouldnt-expect-an-even-playing-field/

When talking about exempting charter school teachers’ not public school teachers from the odious Student Success act, he said “I’ve been in business for thirty years. I’ve never asked for an even playing field,” Gaetz said. “You can’t make everything equal.” This is the same man who will tell everybody he meets that charter schools are public schools too.

Reuters recently revealed that many charter schools also aren’t playing on a level playing field as they exclude children with discipline problems, disabled students, low academic achievers, ESOL students and students whose parents may not be as involved as they like. And despite all these advantages, they don’t do better than public schools.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-usa-charters-admissions- 

Read that again, many charter schools are allowed to pick the best students and then they don’t do any better than their public school counterparts and this is what Don Geatz is trying to sell you.

Geatz went on to say, when talking about the two groups of teachers who supposedly all work at public schools, “But you’re not going to get paid the same, you’re not going to get treated the same, you’re not going to get evaluated the same,”

Some people might argue that charter schools by their very nature are supposed to play by different rules but nobody should agree that schools that receive public money shouldn’t have accountability measures, which many charter schools are exempt from, in place. Furthermore if the legislature, which has been saying for years we need to evaluate teachers more stringently, shouldn’t that include charter school teachers as well?

Don Geatz doesn’t think so. He thinks life’s not fair and public school teachers should suck it up.