Will Charlie Crist Crack?

Will Charlie Crist Crack?
Unions pressure Florida's Governor to veto school reform.

Florida wasn't one of the states awarded a Race to the Top education grant for its school reform efforts from the Obama Administration. But the state continues to demonstrate why it deserved to be a recipient notwithstanding Republican Governor Charlie Crist, who can't seem to decide whether he stands with school children or the teachers unions.

As we neared deadline last night, Florida's House of Representative was poised to pass legislation that would abolish teacher tenure in public schools; require teachers to be evaluated based on the progress of students in their class; and reward the most effective teachers with better pay. Teachers in Florida receive a lifetime guarantee of employment after a mere three years of "satisfactory" evaluations. Last year, 99.7% of Florida teachers earned a satisfactory evaluation, including 100% of teachers in more than 50 of the state's 67 counties. Such reviews are meaningless.

When districts grant tenure without taking into account whether students are learning, ineffective instructors become impossible to fire. Under the proposed legislation, none of the 175,000 Florida teachers with tenure would lose it. But teachers hired after July 1, 2010 would join an annual contract system, and their evaluations would be based in part on the progress of their students.

On Monday, Governor Crist indicated he would sign the bill, which has already passed the state senate. By Thursday, however, he'd gone wobbly, citing teacher union concerns that pay-for-performance would disadvantage instructors who teach poor children and students with special needs.
But on the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress test, scores for Florida's fourth-grade students with disabilities jumped by nine points, compared to a one point drop in the national average. And low-income eighth-grade test scores rose by six points, versus a national increase of two points. The reality is that kids with learning disabilities or who come from underprivileged families are as capable of academic progress as other children. Their teachers should not escape accountability.

Mr. Crist is seeking a U.S. Senate seat in November and facing a tough challenge for the GOP nomination from conservative Marco Rubio. Conservatives have soured on the Governor for his embrace of the Obama Administration's spending agenda, among other things, and some have speculated that he will run as an independent to bypass the Republican primary. Mr. Crist insists he will run as a Republican. In any event, Floridians will have to decide whether they want a Senator who's tempted to side with the adults who run public schools instead of with the children who attend them.