Scott Signs Teacher Merit Pay Law
Thursday, March 24, 2011
By: Tom Parkinson

March 24, 2011 | WMFE - Gov. Rick Scott has signed the merit pay bill for Florida teachers. The new law partially links teacher pay with student performance and eliminates tenure for teachers hired after July of this year.

Scott traveled to a charter school in Jacksonville this morning to sign the bill (SB 736) into law. He told reporters at the signing ceremony that the law is the beginning of a new system for measuring educational progress. “We are going to have the best schools," Scott said.  "Whatever you measure, you get better at."

Most bills are passed in the final days of the annual legislative session then signed or vetoed by the governor but this measure was one of the new Republican governor’s top priorities.
The Republican controlled legislature put the bill on a fast track and passed it in the first week of this year's legislative session. 

Former Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a similar bill last year.
 
Scott is a proponent of publicly funded but privately operated charter schools like the KIPP School in Jacksonville which he chose for today’s signing ceremony.

The state’s teacher’s union, the Florida Education Association, denounced the new law saying it chips away at teachers' due process and collective bargaining rights.
A union spokesman also said the law would also increase the number of standardized tests Florida students must take. That will cost the state millions of dollars, the union says, but the Legislature has not allocated any funding to pay for the increased testing.

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