A comment from a reader in Florida:
“I went to an Orange County Florida school board meeting and afterwards told a couple members “I am the world expert on the VAM -potentially” I smiled. They had not even looked at the equation. No one in that room or probably in the administrative building for 180,000 students had even looked at this. What had they almost passed the last meeting? Flunking, then firing all the new teachers in a high poverty school. I told the school lawyer.The attitude? They may care but they have been hoodwinked. They have all bought into voodoo school management. Who would ever want to say about the VAM: “My boss is an algorithm.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is because Florida is an at will state, right? Several times I have heard people say that the teachers’ union in Florida is an actual union. So is it, or is it not?
It is not and actual union in the sense that it is able to rally the rank and file and help them take a stand to protect themselves. I’ve been a member for 12 years and was a building representative for 10 years. Pretty much every issue I raised would always be answered with “we can’t really do anything about that”.
The FEA has no clout outside of lobbying the Tea Party controlled legislature, which holds a very comfortable sinecure due to gerrymandering that would make most scam artists blush. It is against the law to strike. It is against the law to talk about any actions that may impact the workplace and even hinting at taking an action would result in enormous fines and possible jail time for union leaders so the union is very, very careful to avoid any kind of real action outside of after hours marches, letter writing and phone call campaigns, and contract negotiations that can be overridden by the state very easily (we had the last 3 contracts imposed on us in my county and negotiations were null and void).
Although they successfully lobbied against the original merit pay bill a few years ago and got the voters to pass the class size amendment twice, the blowback from ALEC and the legislature in Tallahassee was horrendous, fast, and complete. The FEA is behind a lawsuit agains the VAM program that will take years to litigate. It’s hard to fight when all the laws and the state government are against you in every move you make, especially if you aren’t willing to sacrifice and pay the price of standing up to the bullies and scam artists that run the state and talk about actually striking.
In the meantime are working in an edubully-controlled war zone in this state and the FEA, NEA, AFT, etc. are largely silent, spending the majority of their time supporting the CCSS rollout and saying nothing about the abuse of teachers and our profession, the constant degradation and humiliation of teachers through ridiculous laws and out of control education department employees, the potential decimation of our ranks under VAM, and the damage being done to a generation of children. I do not know how to change this. I wish I did!
By law, teachers in Florida cannot strike. Calling it a union or not doesn’t matter – we have no negotiating power. The state and districts can really do what they want.
Chris & Kris: having been a union member in the past and gone on strike, let me get this straight.
In the hundred-yard dash to victory, you and ‘fearsomely powerful’ teacher groups are placed an additional hundred yards behind the start line, while your employers and management are placed at the 90-yard line, with only 10 yards to cover to win. Or to use a boxing analogy, you have your hands bound behind your backs and your shoelaces tied together while employers and management are allowed to use brass knuckles under their gloves and are never called for low blows and ear biting.
But of course whenever there is a “problem” to be overcome in the public schools, y’all are to blame, right? I mean, considering all the power y’all wield…
NOT!
“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.” [Frederick Douglass]
Good luck—you find yourselves in an excruciatingly difficult situation.
🙂
This is exactly why I quit teaching in FL. I knew sooner or later, my VAM wouldn’t cut the muster. We have a new charter opening about every year in my county, which means we need fewer and fewer teachers in the real public schools. Now that we have VAM-based layoffs, it would be easy for a principal to stack the deck against any teacher s/he wanted fired for any reason.
I refuse to work under such conditions. FL teachers now have no job protections, low pay, and are not treated professionally. I was sad to leave behind almost a decade of my life (between getting my degree and the 5 years of experience), but I have to set myself up for a good future, and the powers that be in FL have proven teaching will not be a good future for anyone.
Smart and capable people will not chose to be teachers under these conditions, so the real losers are the children. According to my county’s superintendent, the universities in FL can’t fill spots for education. This is a good thing for the profession, since only a shortage will help us reverse what has been lost.
I agree. When the Universities start feeling the pain, there will be more pressure on legislatures.
No worries there- Obama’s new plan is targeting public universities- we are next. And budget cuts have already happened for the past 5+ years.
Schools of education will have extended VAM ratings, based on the test scores of their graduates. They are late to the party and will suffer just as we lowly teachers have. Their ivory towers did not keep them safe.
It is already happening in many states.