<<Opponents said the tenure and rectification provisions were unprecedented. They argued the lack of job security and testing that can be skewed by outside factors such as students' home lives would have discouraged good teachers from working in Florida.
That alone makes it obvious how poorly thought-out this bill was. It is ridiculous.
<<School districts also would have been prohibited from using experience and advanced degrees in setting pay scales, now a common practice.>>
Huh???
Well, that sure fits the GOP practice of appealing to the lowest common denominator. Obama was a magna cum laude grad of Harvard Law and taught Constitutional Law at U. of Chicago Law School for 12 years, so morons like McCain (finished third from the bottom in a class of 800 in a military academy) and Palin ("I read all the magazines and newspapers, I just can't name any of them") must obviously be superior to "egg-heads" like Obama.
A little more detail on the ed-reform bills that passed with teachers' union support in Delaware and Tennessee would have been helpful. Incentive rewards for merit aren't bad in principle, maybe there was a difference in the means of evaluation and procedural protection for the teachers. Maybe there were reasonable limits on penalties. But who knows - - maybe the teachers' unions there were just sell-out pushovers. The reporting on that aspect of the issue leaves everyone in the dark.
