Celeste Richter, a highly rated Florida teacher, does not want a bonus for a test she took nearly 25 years ago.
The legislature passed a plan to award $10,000 to teachers who had high SAT scores in high school. The bonus is also available to currents teachers who are rated “highly effective” but only if they had high SAT scores. Veteran teachers may not be able to obtain their SAT scores, or learn whether they were in top 20%, as the law requires.
“I refuse,” said Richter, a highly-effective rated AP government teacher at Wesley Chapel High School. “A test I took in 1991 is not valid to say what a quality educator I am.”
“Richter, who’s entering her 19th year of teaching, isn’t looking up her SAT scores, though she recalls doing well. She doesn’t want the state’s award of up to $10,000, though she really could use it.
“As a moral principle, I don’t believe this is an effective way to reward teachers for a good job,” she said, further noting that the final amount will likely be far less than the maximum. “I’m not going to run after crumbs.”
For standing on principle, for courage and candor, Celeste Richter joins the blog’s honor roll.
Many people think the law is a giveaway to Teach for America, who will earn more than 10-year veterans and leave in two or three years. Its author, Erik Fresen, is a member of a family that owns a large charter chain, Academica.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
WOW, good for Celeste Richter, She’s no politician … that is for sure. She is a bona fide teacher. I admire Celeste for her stance.
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What you said.
😎
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This is so silly. I have a 3.95 GPA from a well respected university. I have a master’s degree. My praxis scores were above the 90th percentile. It shows that I know how to study and take a test, nothing more. This says nothing about my classroom practices or how I personally relate with children! This is stupidity magnified!
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And you KNOW that Utah will “think” of this next…
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Thank you Ms. Richter! This ploy is just another “Florida slap in the face” to the teachers who have dedicated their lives to children. ALL teachers should do the same thing.
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This is not just a slap in the face to real teachers. It is corporate welfare because the goal is to get taxpayers to pay to make TFA more attractive to candidates. The corporations win.
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presidential candidates of BOTH, repeat BOTH, repeat you, too, Hillary…..raise your hand if you think this is a really stupid idea which should have been vetoed by whoever was governor of this swampy dump.
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Hillary is too busy formulating for Race to the Top program for higher education to weigh in on something so mundane and so beloved of her neoliberal philosophy: so-called ‘merit pay’.
See Politico (I posted the link yesterday) for the story.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/hillary-clinton-readies-student-loan-reform-rollout-121117.html
Seems there will be some kind of performance/VAM/testing scores to be attached to receiving the extra money for colleges and universities and she is rumored to be opening the possibility of departments being sued if graduates are unable to pay back student loans due to employment issues. How dumb is that?
Just say NO to Hillary!
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Good to hear she’s taking the high road!
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I’m pretty sure I would qualify based upon my ACT scores from 1978 and my last 3 years of Highly Effective ratings but I don’t have those ACT scores and have no idea how to get them. Someone at work told me it would cost $38 to have the College Board go back in the archives and there is no guarantee they will find my scores from 37 years ago but they will keep the fee anyway.
Seems to me a good opportunity for the FEA to sue the state since many eligible teachers will be unable to apply for the so-called ‘bonus’ because they don’t have access to their scores and there is no easy way to get them.
Of course this is Florida, so up is down, dark is light, and anything is possible coming from our Tea Party legislature.
Kudos to Ms. Richter!
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PS I know how this works here too. Too many people will qualify and they’ve already stated they won’t increase the funding so most will get a much smaller piece of this reform pie than promised. The state legislature does this pretty regularly. When the bill comes due they lose their fervor and drop the law quietly.
I say good riddance to a rubbish law.
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Test scores are hogwash in my opinion. With a Ph.D. and 48 years of successful teaching, who cares about my test scores? Not I. My bottom line is that I did my best for my students. A life-time of caring for and assisting my students to achieve their best is all I care about. Get all politicians out of education! Let those of us qualified do our jobs!
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I am a teacher and graduated in 1981 from high school. This has to be the silliest piece of legislation ever. How can a score on a test determine if you will be, or are a good teacher. Some high intellectuals have absolutely no people skills. A score shows nothing about personality, work ethic or classroom management abilities. I can’t believe our government even voted for this.
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We have many public school teachers in Florida making the same decision. And we know they could use the money…
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I have performed well on every standardized test I have ever taken. My students have also excelled on standardized tests. But frankly, this enrages me. These measures are meant to divide and demoralize teachers. I believe teachers should boycott every state (especially Florida) that has enacted laws that are adverse to teachers. And while I realize that virtually state has been guilty of this in varying degrees, there are some states that have been more egregious than others– like Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, New Orleans and Arizona. I will personally divest of ANY business in these states and others.
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Wow. I didn’t realize my stance would make this type of news! I guess one person can make a difference!
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Thank you, Celeste.
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Celeste, you always make a difference. I’m behind you 100%.
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Celeste Richter: frankly, I don’t know how you pulled it off…
“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
How in the world did you get a chance to meet Mark Twain and inspire him to write that about you?
Well, just color me gratified and astonished too.
😎
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I’m a good friend and colleague of Celeste Richter, and I proudly stand with her. This “bonus” is bogus. I’d love to see the lawmakers’ SAT scores…
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Wait a minute. She doesn’t buy into the SAT hype, but she’s an AP teacher?
SAT: College Board.
AP: College Board.
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The College Board makes the PSAT (there’s now a PSAT 8/9 and a PSAT 10), the SAT, and the Advanced Placement program. The College Board was also a major player in developing the Common Core. All of its products are “aligned” with Common Core.
The SAT is not an “aptitude” test nor is it an achievement test. But it is very much a test that measures family income. College enrollment specialists say that their research finds the SAT predicts between 3 and 15 percent of freshman-year college grades, and after that nothing. As one commented, “I might as well measure their shoe size.” The ACT is only marginally better. These are – mostly – educationally worthless tests.
But guess what? Research finds that AP doesn’t live up to its hype either.
ExxonMobil and Boeing and Lockheed Martin and JPMorganChase are avid supporters of Advanced Placement and the National Math and Science Initiative (which perpetuates the STEM “crisis” myth).
The teacher cited in this piece opted not to take state money for an SAT score, saying it would be hypocritical. And yet, the course she teaches is completely geared (structured) to the AP test. Students who take the course are REQUIRED to take the AP test. Test prep books -– like Barons, 5 Steps to a 5, Kaplan’s, and Spark notes –– are highly recommended. And this particular AP course is completed in a semester.
Okay. She isn’t going after the SAT cash. Is she also turning down the Florida cash bonuses for student AP scores?
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Dem, are you suggesting that she should have refused to teach AP? Schools have an expectation of the number of AP courses they will offer. This expectation is often based on need but it also often based on politics. As a result, some teachers are often TOLD (without asking) what they will be teaching. In some cases, this means teaching a class they would not like to teach. But even if this is not the case, many teachers enjoy teaching AP classes because of the nature of the material and the caliber of students taking the course. Attaching cash to AP scores was a dumb Florida idea and one that most AP teachers would not have promoted. Because Florida salaries are already ridiculously low, expecting a teacher to refuse money for busting their behinds (especially if it amounts to thousands of dollars) is a little unfair. Just so you know, I teach AP classes. I would have gotten the bonus if I taught in Florida. I make a decent salary but I would still be opposed to attaching scores to my evaluations or bonuses.
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“. . . are you suggesting that she should have refused to teach AP?”
If Dem, didn’t suggest that, I do.
I refused to teach AP Spanish, and yes I was “certified” to teach it having taken a three hour graduate course in it-basically a how to teach to the test-because I could see through the sham of it from the start.
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Duane,
I understand the point you are making. But teachers can’t realistically refuse a teaching assignment because, even with tenure, it constitutes insubordination, which is grounds for immediate removal under most contracts Therefore, many teachers end up teaching AP courses under protest and work hard doing it. And just because the state proposes a crazy idea like giving bonuses for high AP scores, this doesn’t mean AP teachers should be obligated (out of some warped sense of morality) to refuse to accept the bonuses. After working hard at doing something you never wanted to do, I think a bonus is well-deserved!
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