Merit Pay for Florida Teachers

Today, a grave injustice was committed. Today, we have turned our backs on thousands of children and their futures. Education in this country has always been far from equal. Minorities and women have had to fight hard for their right to an education. We falsely believe that Brown v. Board of Education has solved our problems. That this ruling has somehow equalized the playing field for everyone, and that those who fail must be doing so due to their own shortcomings. This could not be farther from the truth. Today educational discrimination isn’t blatant racism or sexism. It is a much more widespread and subtle injustice. It is discrimination based on socioeconomic status.

Florida bases the majority of school funding on property tax. Therefore, the property tax generated by a neighborhood is what is used to fund a public school in that neighborhood. This means that the property taxes collected in a very rich neighborhood would be allocated to a school in that area, so the school has plenty of money and resources to work with. It also means that the small amount of property taxes collected by a very poor neighborhood are all that a school gets in that area. As you can see, this allocation of funding is quite discriminatory and far from ‘equal.’ Poor children have far fewer resources to work with and yet they are expected to perform at the same levels as those with abundant funding.

Reading Jonathan Kozol’s book, “The Shame of the Nation,” made me realize the extent of this disparity between schools. In one school in New York, children were sent to school in a gutted roller rink. Black boards were used to create the illusion of rooms. There were not windows to be found. Air conditioning was luxury far out of reach. Yet a short drive away there was a school with a brand new library and models of the galaxy. You may be thinking that this is an exception and not the norm, but that is incorrect. This type of disparity exists everywhere. In your country. In your state. Even in your city.

I grew up in Tallahassee Florida and attended Lawton Chiles High School. My school had a giant marquee flashing upcoming events and student achievements. Digital clocks lined the hallways, and there were enough copies of our textbooks that we could each take one home and have enough left over for a classroom set so that we didn’t have to carry them back and forth. My sister went to Rickard’s high school across town. Their resources were scarce. Textbooks were limited and personal copies were unheard of. The building was old and not well taken care of. On her way to class one day, my sister noticed a student throw up outside a building. It wasn’t cleaned up for 2 weeks. I was floored when I heard this. It couldn’t be true. My denial was proof of the comfortable bubble I was living in. This information was so hard for me to take in because it meant that there was not, as I had learned, equal education for all.

Today, the Florida legislature passed a bill that teachers will now be paid based on merit pay. Schools that do not abide by this rule will have drastic cuts in their funding by the state. The legislature was under a lot of heat because of our broken educational system, and instead of admitting how their current method for allocating property tax dollars was the problem, they pointed their fingers at teachers. “Teachers are too comfortable,” they say. “This bill will get rid of the dead weight.” What the legislators have failed to do is to look at the root of the problems. Failing schools are NOT failing because of teachers. They are failing because they are poor schools in poor neighborhoods with scarce resources and a terrible learning environment. How can we expect these students to perform at the same level as those with top of the line technology in their classrooms, who don’t have to worry about the room temperature or the floor beneath their feet giving way at a moment’s notice? It is outrageous. These legislators have failed to see what the implications of this policy will surely be. Good teachers will all leave failing schools and join well performing schools in order to receive higher pay. My aunt who has taught kindergarten for over 20 years will have to decide whether to stay at her current school where many of her students come in knowing little English, or to move across town to a richer elementary school where most kids that start already know their ABC’s. The kids that already know their ABC’s are starting leaps and bounds ahead of those who don’t even speak English. To pay my aunt less for teaching these less fortunate students or to claim that she isn’t doing her job if her students don’t perform at the same level as those from richer schools is not only preposterous, but plain ignorance. Pulling all of the good teachers out of failing schools will only increase the already expanding education gap. This bill must be struck down. We should be providing more opportunities for our students, not taking their futures away.