In the wake of a recent Herald article describing how Miami ranks near the bottom of all major U.S. cities when it comes to housing affordability for teachers, how teachers are compensated in the state of Florida takes on a bigger, real-world, dollars-and-cents significance. While the state’s legislature prepares to continue the Best & Brightest Scholarship Program that’s based on a teacher’s college entrance exam score that may be decades old, teachers who are actually making a positive contribution to their students’ learning are receiving nothing more than the paper equivalent of a pat on the back. I am one of those teachers!
Recently, I received a letter from Florida Department of Education Commissioner Pam Stewart congratulating me for being “one of the highest impact teachers in the state!” This determination was made “based on a state-level value-added model (VAM)” that “used each of the most recent three years of data” of my “former students’ performance on statewide standardized assessments.” While the VAM, and how it’s calculated, has received plenty of well-deserved criticism, it is currently the only official way used to tie a teacher’s effectiveness to actual student performance. And what does this High Impact Teacher achievement earn me? Not one shiny red penny!
Meanwhile, the Florida Legislature has allocated $50 million in each of the last two years for the Best & Brightest Scholarship Program. This year, a Florida House member proposed adding an additional $200 million to the program. The Best & Brightest bonus is determined in part by how high a teacher’s score was on a college entrance exam, such as the SAT. Teachers who qualified received over $8,000 under this program last year. In my case, I took the SAT nearly a quarter century ago. Under the criteria for Best & Brightest, I scored high enough on one of the two SAT categories, but to qualify, I would have had to score high enough on both.
Let that sink in for a minute. I had a measurable real-life positive effect on my students’ education for the past three years, and I am not getting any money whatsoever for this. Yet, Florida legislators have determined that if I would have scored well enough on a test I took almost 25 years ago that has no definitive connection to my students’ education, I would deserve thousands of bonus dollars! In case you’re slapping your face at the baffling absurdity of it all, please rest assured that you are not alone!
If you are a fellow teacher, a parent, or just a concerned citizen, you should contact your Florida state representative and senator and let them know that you believe the allocation of the Best & Brightest Scholarship Program money based on the results of a teacher’s college entrance exam test score is ill-conceived, at best. If you are a Florida legislator yourself, then it is your duty to talk some sense into your fellow legislators! We should award the Best & Brightest Scholarship Program bonus money to the teachers who are actually providing a genuine quantifiable benefit to their students' education.
