Florida Political Fireworks start March 8th

Senate Republicans said Wednesday they are intent on making good on last fall's campaign promises -- setting the stage for a highly partisan opening week of the 2011 Legislature.

In party-line votes, the GOP-ruled Budget Committee OK'd four high-profile bills that touch on many of the issues raised by Republican Gov. Rick Scott and other Florida GOP candidates during last fall's contests.

"We have a very ambitious opening week planned," said Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island. "As we promised, we're going to take our job very seriously."

Two measures approved by the budget panel would put ballot proposals before voters next year. One proposal seeks to cut Florida out of the federal health care overhaul, while the other would set a strict new spending limit on state government.

Another bill advanced Wednesday would eliminate teacher tenure, create a new teacher evaluation system and introduce merit pay, an approach generally opposed by the state's largest teachers' union, a big Democratic base.

Rounding out the ripped-from-the-campaign-trail ideas: a product liability bill opposed by Democratic-allied trial lawyers.

Despite pleas from teachers and Democratic lawmakers to hold off on bold reforms, plans to reinvent how Florida pays and evaluates its teachers soared through legislative committees Wednesday.

The new model would tie at least 50 percent of teachers' salaries and contracts to student performance, replacing a structure that values seniority and uses a last-in, first-out layoff policy.

That practice is "upside-down, illogically," said Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, who introduced the bill and chairs the K-20 competitiveness committee.

The legislation would measure teacher performance based on four categories, and give principals the option to reject teachers who have not been rated highly effective or effective; end teacher contracts for those who receive two unsatisfactory evaluations in three years; give teachers hired after July 1, 2011, annual and not continuing contracts; and put teachers hired after July 1, 2014, on performance-based scales.

The House amended its measure (proposed bill 11-01) to mirror a substitute Senate bill (SB 736) that passed its final committee Wednesday morning. The measures are speeding toward Gov. Rick Scott, who has said he would sign the bill once it reaches his desk. Then-Gov. Charlie Crist famously vetoed SB 6, last year's controversial teacher tenure bill.

One version of an overhaul bill passed its first House subcommittee Wednesday.

It calls for the use of student test scores to help determine teacher pay and effectiveness, and the elimination of tenure, the practice that grants teachers with seniority certain job protections.

The proposal mirrors Senate Bill 736, which was introduced this month and passed the Senate Budget Committee on Wednesday.

State Rep. Erik Fresen, a Republican from Miami, said exceptions in the House bill for the Hillsborough school district are "perfectly paired up" with the Senate version.

SB 736 largely exempted Hillsborough from the reforms because the district is more than a year ahead of the rest of the state with its overhaul, financed in part by a $100 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"They're not really being exempted," Fresen said, "because, in reality, they're already doing it."

Like SB 736, the House proposal requires districts to base 50 percent of teacher evaluations on student learning gains.

Hillsborough will be allowed to continue with its new evaluations, in which learning gains account for 40 percent. The new Hillsborough standard is in place this year.

The district, like others across the state, also can forge ahead with its own evaluation tools for courses that don't have annual assessments such as the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

These so-called value-added formulas are expected to debut in August.

They are necessary, education officials say, to help measure student learning gains in areas such as music, art and special education.

Hillsborough schools Superintendent MaryEllen Elia told members of the House K-20 Competitiveness Subcommittee, she appreciated that they took into account the work the district already is doing.