I am not sure I understand the funding item.

I think tenure is vital for colleges but not so much for K-12.  However, I do not understand why the Florida Legislature decided to forbid multi-year contracts.  If I am a principal and have a great teacher, I would like to be able to lock him or her up for a few years.

I also strongly support the idea of a national test instead of a local thing like the FCAT.  I don't trust FCAT reports, and there is no way to compare our state to others.  For all I know, they simply tweaked their secret formula and "poof -- everyone's writing scores went up 11% in a year!"

I have always thought that we should do a better job separating the college-bound from the rest so that we can start training people to work rather than expect them to take Calculus.

The thing that has bothered me most about Rhee, Jeb Bush, the current Florida Legislature, etc., is that they want to "reform" public education by trashing the current model and replace it with something untested.  They don't even have the end-of-year tests they are going to use, nor do they have an established formula for measuring learning gains (while accounting for outside influences).  Why can't they take several schools, collect as much data as they can for three years, analyze it, and then create a formula?  Why punch teachers in the face repeatedly when you don't even know if you are right or have a working alternative. 

It makes me wonder whether some of them don't have other motives.  After all, they instituted this new merit pay system but failed to provide any money to give the best teachers any raises.  If I am a teacher who can get no more than a one-year contract, get non-renewed for no reason despite high performance, can expect to be paid less than in most other states, will be evaluated by an unknown formula created by idealogues in Tallahassee, might be forced to teach intelligent design, and will be told annually by morticians and mortgage brokers (i.e., legislators) despite evidence to the contrary that I am an overpaid failure, why in the world would I ever consider teaching in this state?  Start off with $5k less than in Georgia?  Qualify for merit raises only to find that they were not funded?  Never be able to get more than a 10-month contract?  Pass.