{"id":16719,"date":"2013-02-15T12:43:41","date_gmt":"2013-02-15T17:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=16719"},"modified":"2013-02-18T12:40:48","modified_gmt":"2013-02-18T17:40:48","slug":"florida-senate-president-says-teachers-shouldnt-expect-an-even-playing-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/02\/15\/florida-senate-president-says-teachers-shouldnt-expect-an-even-playing-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Senate President Says Teachers Shouldn’t Expect An Even Playing Field"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Jordan Michael\/StateImpact Florida<\/p>

Senate President Don Gaetz says students and teachers should have school choice options.<\/p><\/div>\n

Supporters say the charter school bill<\/a> that has a good chance of passing Florida\u2019s Republican controlled Legislature this year will better regulate charters and expand choices for parents.<\/p>\n

One thing the bill won\u2019t do is require the same evaluations for charter school teachers<\/a> as traditional public school teachers.<\/p>\n

Charter schools which do not participate in the federal Race to the Top program do not have to evaluate teachers. However, many charter schools are evaluating teachers (search “charter” in our database to find a few)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Senate President Don Gaetz says that\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in business for thirty years. I\u2019ve never asked for an even playing field,\u201d Gaetz said. \u201cYou can\u2019t make everything equal.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Gaetz is a former public school superintendent and school board chairman in Okaloosa County in the Panhandle.<\/p>\n

Just as parents have a choice about where to send their kids to school, he said teachers should also have a choice about where to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think you\u2019d rather work in a charter school so that you\u2019re not necessarily under the thumb of the district or of a union, I think you ought to have a chance to apply to a charter school and get selected,\u201d Gaetz said.<\/p>\n

He says teachers who feel more comfortable in a traditional school environment should be able to work there, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you\u2019re not going to get paid the same, you\u2019re not going to get treated the same, you\u2019re not going to get evaluated the same,\u201d Gaetz said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not okay for Jorge Lugo, a Vero Beach high school teacher and athletics coach who \u201chates to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lugo told a House committee last week<\/a> that he is all for competition between teachers because it creates a better classroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, when I\u2019m compared side by side as a public school teacher next to a charter school teacher, and they look at my score versus their score, they\u2019re not the same thing,\u201d Lugo said. \u201cIf they\u2019re not held to the same accountability levels as I am, line for line, then it\u2019s not the same score.<\/p>\n

\u201cCharter school teachers won\u2019t be held to the same standards or evaluated the same way as the teachers in the public schools,\u201d Lugo said. \u201cCertainly there\u2019s competition, but it\u2019s not fair competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charter schools are publicly funded, but privately run schools.<\/p>\n

Charter schools must hire certified teachers<\/a> and students must take the same tests required of district school students. But charter schools are exempt from some regulations<\/a> in order to allow them more flexibility.<\/p>\n

For instance, charter school teachers are not unionized. Charter schools can extend school hours or the calendar. And charter school buildings don’t have to abide by the same building codes as district school buildings.<\/p>\n

Charter schools are also accused of skimming the best and brightest students<\/a>. (Others argue the best and brightest students are more likely to seek out a charter school.) Charter schools must use a lottery to determine which students win a spot in the school.<\/p>\n

Gaetz says being afraid of school choice is \u201c1950\u2019s thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to give parents more choices; we need to give students more options<\/a>,\u201d Gaetz said, \u201cbut we need to hold the operators of (all) schools\u2026to the same high standards academically and financially.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supporters say the charter school bill that has a good chance of passing Florida\u2019s Republican controlled Legislature this year will better regulate charters and expand choices for parents. One thing the bill won\u2019t do is require the same evaluations for charter school teachers as traditional public school teachers. Charter schools which do not participate in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":16720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[1009,768,1017,90,1119],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16719"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}