Largo, Florida - Teachers know it as Senate Bill 736, supporters call it the "Student Success and Teacher Quality Bill," and both see two different sides to the bill.
The Florida Senate version passed last week, and today the House held a marathon session debating the issue. By Wednesday afternoon, the House passed it on a partisan 80-39 roll call, which will now send it to Governor Rick Scott to sign into law.
Teachers have taken their case against SB 736 to the streets, to legislators, and to Gov. Scott. Still the conservative Legislature is on the fast rack to passing the teacher merit pay bill.
"Our students will suffer for it. I'm afraid my colleagues who are fabulous teachers are going to leave. It's becoming a punitive issue rather than trying to help us get better," says Susan Spaulding, a teacher at Ridgecrest Elementary in Largo.
The bill calls for 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation to be based on student test scores. Pinellas teacher Susan Spaulding says the evaluation system needs reforming, but not like this.
"They're passing a bill and they have no evaluation process in mind anyway. There's no instrument, no testing of it and they're asking us to put our livelihood on faith in them," says Spaulding.
Opponents add the bill lacks funding to create the testing needed to evaluate teachers.
"It's hard to believe a group of people who are as conservative as these would pass a bill that's truly an unfunded mandate on local school districts," says Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association.
"This bill is nothing more than an attack on public school teachers. That's it. That's all. It attacks teachers, maybe because they're the easiest target, or because they may belong to unions, or maybe it's because those who support this bill may not like teachers' politics," says Rep. Rick Kriseman (D-St. Petersburg).
Spaulding adds, "I teach third grade there are 24 standardized tests I give my students... 24. And they are going to give them more. It will cost millions more to develop, assess, and grade. It doesn't make any sense in this economic climate."
The second part of the bill targets teacher tenure. Current teachers would remain on their multi-year contracts, but new teachers hired after July 1st will have annual contracts. This means principals will be able to fire them at will. Teachers say this eliminates due process.
Spaulding adds, "The teaching profession here in Florida has become cookie cutter; one size fits all."
State leaders supporting the bill say it would help get rid of the bad teachers and keep the good ones, and this is turn would raise student performance. Governor Scott has said he would sign the bill.