Educators can pursue a nice SAT score: $10,000
Florida teachers may be eligible for bonuses of up to $10,000 if they scored well on their SAT or ACT college entrance exams, no matter how many years ago they took them.
The state’s new budget, which went into effect July 1, provides $44 million for “highly effective” teachers to get bonuses if they scored in the top 20 percent of students who took the test when they did. It applies to both district and charter school teachers.
If more than 4,400 teachers apply, the state would make the reward smaller but wouldn’t change eligibility criteria.
The idea for the bonus
came from State Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, who told the Legislature that “multiple studies indicate students learn more from teachers who achieved high SAT or ACT scores” and that such teachers should be rewarded.
But some are already questioning “Florida’s Best and Brightest Scholarship Program,” which may be the first of its kind in the country and for which guidelines are still being developed.
The nonprofit National Council on Teacher Quality has supported many of Florida’s efforts to improve teacher accountability. But President Kate Walsh criticized this plan, saying performance pay and bonuses work best when they focus on raising student achievement. Teachers should have a fair chance to earn them, she said.
“This doesn’t seem to be respectful of that,” she said.
Michael Woods, a teacher of students with special needs at Santaluces High, west of Lantana, was rated highly effective this year and has been a recipient of the county’s prestigious Dwyer Award for teacher excellence. But he wasn’t the best prepared student in high school and earned SAT and ACT scores in 1986 that would be too low to qualify.
“I know more in 2015 than I did in 1986. I’m a much better test taker today. I’d like a do-over,” Woods said.
Fresen, who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education and has close ties to a charter school management company, could not be reached for comment despite calls to his office and home. The studies he cited included one in 1996 from the Monroe County Community School Corp. in Indiana, a 2002 report from Cornell University in New York, and a 2003 study from the American Educational Research Association.
“There is a correlation, but it’s only a correlation,” Walsh said. ““It doesn’t mean you end up producing results. How is this relevant to a 40-year-old year teacher?”
She said school districts should look at a teacher’s academic background, which includes test scores, when they recruit them, but it shouldn’t be a way to reward existing teachers.
“It seems a little backwards,” Walsh said. “I don’t understand it.”
Under the law, to earn the bonus, teachers must have been rated highly effective in their most recent evaluation and have scored better than 80 percent of students who took the test at the same time they did.
The qualifying test scores vary from year to year and only charts from recent years are easily available online. A student who took the test last year would need a 1780 out of 2400 on the SAT and a 26 out of 36 on the ACT to meet the criteria. In 2006, a student would have needed to score a 1210 out of 1600 on the SAT or a 26 on the ACT.
There’s nothing in the state law that addresses whether teachers can retake the test to improve their scores.
It’s unclear how many teachers would qualify for the bonus. Palm Beach County rated 44 percent of its teachers, or 5,621, as highly effective this year. Yet in Broward County, only 5.1 percent of teachers, or 715, had that rating. School district officials don’t know how many of those met the required scores on their college entrance exams.
First-year teachers without a current evaluation would be eligible if they met the test score requirements, which Walsh also found problematic since they haven’t proven they ’re highly effective yet.
Many educators were already angry over the Legislature’s decision in recent years to end tenure and move toward a pay-for-performance plan. School districts and lawmakers have struggled to devise an evaluation system that is fair to teachers in all subjects.
“Now they decide to punish teachers, who are excelling under the current evaluation system, because of a single test they took decades ago?” asked Sharon Glickman, president of Broward Teachers Union. “If legislators want to attract the best and the brightest to the education profession, they need to raise education funding and pay teachers a better salary.”
Teachers will have until Oct. 1 to submit high school transcripts or other proof of their test scores, although districts are waiting to hear from the state before they start accepting applications. Teachers can obtain their old SAT or ACT scores by visiting the College Board’s website. The cost is $31. Or they can request a transcript from their high school.
The state Department of Education is required to submit the money to districts by Feb. 1.