‘Best and brightest’ teachers to get bonuses

But controversial state program may soon end

Thousands of Florida’s public school teachers are in line for “best and brightest” bonuses this school year that will be paid out under the latest — and perhaps last — version of the controversial program.

The 2019 iteration deletes a much-criticized provision that tied the bonuses to the ACT or SAT scores teachers earned back when they were applying to colleges.

But it also reduces the number of teachers eligible for the awards by giving out the bulk of the bonuses based on complicated rules tied to Florida’s A-to-F school grading formula.

Fewer than half of the state’s schools met the criteria, according to the list the Florida Department of Education released late last week. Only teachers on those campuses, if they meet other requirements, will get the so-called retention bonuses, worth $2,500 or $1,000.

This year’s changes mean teachers who qualified previously based on ACT or SAT scores, each receiving $7,200 in 2018, will get far less, if they get a bonus at all.

Last year, all teachers with “highly effective” or “effective” ratings but not the qualifying test scores got bonuses of $1,200 or $700, respectively. This year, those teachers can get $2,500 or $1,000 — but only if they teach at one of the 1,742 eligible public schools.

Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis urged lawmakers to drop the bonus program’s ties to ACT or SAT scores. Now, he said he is working on a teacher compensation proposal for the Legislature to consider in early 2020 and doesn’t envision the bonus program continuing.

“How the Legislature did it that time, I still don’t understand how that’s going to work,” DeSantis told reporters. “It’s was very complicated, and I don’t want it to be that complicated.”

This year’s version of “best and brightest” includes four bonuses, three for teachers and one for school principals. The money likely will be paid out in the spring.

One is a recruitment bonus for newly hired teachers of up to $4,000, if they have master’s degrees or experience in the fields of civics, computer science, math, reading or science. Another is a recognition award that requires local districts to set criteria and will have money only if there are funds left over after paying out the other bonuses.

The biggest pot of money is the retention bonus for “effective” or “highly effective” teachers, if they were at their school last year and this year — and their school met the requirements by showing an average 3 percentage point gain on three years worth of school grade calculations.

Fewer than half of Florida’s about 4,200 public schools did, 70 percent of them rated A or B. Some have complained the system leaves out too many teachers who work at the state’s struggling schools while others noted that some high-performing schools have been left out, too. Bridgewater Middle School in west Orange County, for example, has been A-rated ever year since 2008, but its teachers are not eligible for the retention bonus.

“I agree with the governor on this one. It is confusing,” said Dan Smith, president of the Seminole Education Association who until last spring was a teacher at Lake Brantley High School in Altamonte Springs.

Teachers at schools that did not qualify, B-rated Lake Brantley among them, will be disappointed, he said, even as many instructors applauded the decision to stop tying the bonus to college admission exam scores, which they called an absurd way to gauge teacher quality.

The bonus program was crafted in 2015 by lawmakers who said it would help recruit top college students into teaching careers and help keep quality teachers.

But Smith said the program hasn’t helped on either front. “Teacher retention is worse than it’s ever been,” he said.