Gov. Charlie Crist assailed fellow Republicans for ramming Senate Bill 6 through the Legislature like Democrats ran health-care reform through Congress.
"Quite frankly it reminds me of what happened with the health-care bill in Washington where members of my party criticized the Democrats for sort of jamming something down their throat, and then here, about a month later after that happened, the very same thing happens here in education," Crist said after vetoing the teacher performance-pay bill.
Is that charge true? Is the comparison accurate? GOP leaders in the House and Senate vehemently deny the governor's claim.
"SB 6 was the culmination of months of study, public participation and debate," said Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach.
"At each step of the legislative process, testimony was received and amendments were offered and adopted.The Florida Senate worked closely with Gov. Crists education commissioner, Eric Smith, and maintained an open door to all interested parties," Atwater said.
Aside from the lopsided size differentials -- Obamacare spans 2,400 pages vs. the 63 pages comprising SB 6 -- the Florida Legislature's schedules and timelines indicate that Atwater's perspective is closer to reality.
A presentation on the "Termination of Ineffective Teachers" was made to the Education Pre-K-12 Committee on March 26, 2009 -- 49 weeks before SB6 was introduced. Testimony was heard from representatives of the Florida School Boards Association, two officials from the Florida Association of District School Superintendents and two officials from the Florida Education Association, among others.
Months in advance of the 2010 session, a series of formal, public hearings were convened to accept input from state and local administrators, as well as national experts. Officials included Smith.
An issue brief on teacher quality (2010-313) was produced and circulated in October 2009 by Senate staffers.
"At the same time, individual senators were meeting with parents, teachers and students," according to a Senate document outlining a timeline for testimony and hearings.
Subsequent committee hearings and testimony were conducted Oct. 7, Dec. 9, Jan. 12 and Feb. 16.
After a year of public meetings, Sen. John Thrasher, R-Jacksonville, filed SB 6 on March 1, with committee stops on March 2, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23 and 24.
Over that span, the bill was debated for 12 1/2 hours and 36 amendments were offered -- three-quarters of which were accepted.
Atwater said he had the impression Crist -- already on record as supporting the performance-pay concept -- remained on board because Smith, who helped craft the bill, never expressed concerns in any committee meetings.
The Senate president also said Crist's chief of staff, Shane Strum, led him to believe the governor would sign SB 6.
"I had the full expectation that the governor was comfortable with the bill," Atwater said.
Crist spokesman Sterling Ivey said Strum didn't promise Crist would sign it. Smith has not commented on the matter.
And then there was the House, where a teacher, Rep. John Legg, was a key sponsor of SB 6's companion bill.
Legg, R-Port Richey, stated at a packed April 5 session of the House Education Policy Committee that "multiple" town-hall meetings had been conducted across the state to discuss aspects of teacher performance pay and tenure.
In the two weeks leading up to the final vote in the House, "we devoted more than 24 hours of debate and discussion about this specific bill, including a meeting (April 5) that ran from noon to 8 p.m. to take testimony, most of which was from teachers," said Jill Chamberlin, spokeswoman for House Speaker Larry Cretul's office.
"The conversations about the goals of the bill were begun last year or even earlier," Chamberlin said.
Even Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association, publicly praised members of the House Education Policy Committee at its marathon meeting of April 5 for giving a fair hearing to the education-reform issue.
None of this should have struck anyone -- including the state's chief executive who once served as education commissioner -- as some last-minute rush job, Legg said.
Since 1999, he noted, Florida's 67 districts have been under orders from the state Department of Education to implement pay scales "primarily" linked to academic performance.
The reform legislation -- which would have taken effect in 2013 with Crist's signature -- defined "primarily" as 50 percent and directed districts to earmark 5 percent of funding for performance pay.
"Fourteen years ought to be long enough," Legg said.
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
