We're scared: Tea Party principal urges teacher protection

“We’re scared:” Tea-Party-at-heart principal urges ‘fair deal’ for teachers

By Deborah Nelson
December 28, 2010

It’s like we’re being punished or something, is the way we felt.
Richard Cobb, Principal, Gulf Breeze Middle School

A local Principal who says educators fear Governor-elect Rick Scott’s stance on public education urged Northwest Florida legislators to support public schools at next year’s session.

Gulf Breeze Middle School Principal Richard Cobb spoke at a December 16 Legislative Delegation forum. Northwest Florida legislators had visited the area to gather local input. In attendance were Doug Broxson (Florida House District 1); Clay Ford (Florida House District 3); Greg Evers (Florida Senate District 2) and Don Gaetz (Florida Senate District 4).

Gaetz co-sponsored the infamous SB 6 education bill vetoed earlier this year by Governor Charlie Crist. Evers and Ford voted in favor of it.

Among other measures, that bill would have ended teacher tenure; allowed teachers to be fired without cause; tied teacher retention, pay and bonuses to test scores; prevented schools from using experience and professional degrees to determine salaries; and given the State Department of Education more authority over various personnel issues.

Legislators are working on an updated version, which they’re expected to consider in coming months.

Governor-elect Scott ran on an ultra-conservative platform. He has indicated he’ll support private school vouchers and other measures that weaken public schools funding. Privatization policies have been a hallmark of the far-right conservative agenda for decades.

That has many educators worried, even those from Scott’s own party.

'I’m a Republican'

“The first seed I want to plant in your mind is I’m a Republican,” Cobb remarked. “I think most of the people on our faculty are Republican. “Probably 90 percent, just my guess in interacting with them each and every day.”

Cobb asked elected officials to defend teachers against the coming assault expected from next year’s Legislative session. The Republican Party holds a majority in Florida’s House and Senate.

Professionals under fire

“Our school is one of the highest performing schools in the State of Florida, with respect to middle schools,” Cobb told the Delegation.

“…There are no more committed professionals in education than you’ll find a Gulf Breeze Middle School. And I want to express to you how I feel and how we feel as a group about what’s coming. The people at our school, to a person, do not support the sweeping changes that we see coming in Senate Bill 6.”

Teaching to Federal No Child Left Behind standards has been a burden, said Cobb.

“We’re still living this ridiculous notion that in 2013, 2014 a hundred percent of kids in our country are going to be on reading level and math level,” he pointed out.

“And we’ve thrown so many dollars, throughout this nation and especially here in Florida, in trying to deal with what’s coming with No Child Left Behind. And again, the ridiculous notion that everyone in our nation is going to be on level, in a few years from now.”

‘We just need a fair deal’

In the midst of budget shortages, rising health care and other costs and teachers taking on extra classes, the concept of “performance pay” was introduced earlier this year.

“Performance pay” ties teacher salaries and bonuses to test scores. Most education professionals oppose the policy because it does not take each student’s ability levels, which can vary widely, into account.

“I can tell you that not one person on our faculty believes; in any shape, form or fashion; that performance pay will help their situation; will help them teach any harder; be any more passionate,” Cobb noted.

“…not one of them thinks any aspect of performance pay will be a benefit for our students, first and foremost, for our professional teachers and for Santa Rosa County. And we’re one of the leaders in the State.”

“Educators are passionate people,” he added. “We don’t need $2,000 dangled over us, we just need a fair deal. We just want a fair deal when we go to work each and every day.”

‘The most important aspect of a school is that team attitude’

Opponents also note that teaching is traditionally a team environment, and competitive pay systems would force teachers to stop collaborating, to the detriment of students.

“I see merit pay, performance pay, whatever you want to call it, I see it as ultimately a very divisive issue,” Cobb noted.

“You take a very passionate educator in our school, who; so many of them tutor and do things after school, do whatever kids need for them to do, and don’t ask a dollar for it, and come up on and do whatever they have to do to help guarantee our kids are getting the best they can get. Early in the morning, whatever.

“And let’s just say one of those folks doesn’t get that performance pay, and someone else does that they don’t think deserved it - it’s going to become very divisive for faculties.

“…you know the most important aspect of a school is that team attitude. When you have that team attitude and you get everybody pulling a wagon the same way, then you can work miracles. And most educators do that each and every day in our schools in Santa Rosa County.”

‘The climate now in the schoolhouses is not good’

Cobb said SB 6 was a morale buster for educators.

“I, for one am just terribly offended,” he noted. “I felt outraged when I first read Senate Bill 6 last Spring. Just felt violated, is all I can tell you. The sweeping changes that were proposed to our retirement all in one fell swoop felt criminal to most of us, and still feel that way.

“And we know it’s coming back. And again, we’re realists. We know we’re in difficult times. We don’t have blinders that educators are any different than anybody else, but my gosh. What was in that bill last Spring – where would we have been when we retired with those changes? It’s like we’re being punished or something is the way we felt.”

Keeping up morale is increasingly challenging, Cobb told Legislators.

“We do all the little things we can do to keep them pushing in the right direction and feel very positive about going in that classroom. But I can tell you the climate now in the schoolhouses is not good,” he observed.

Educators are scared

School staff are fearful of what Scott’s administration may bring to education.

“We feel also that the new Governor in the State of Florida is unfriendly to public education,” Cobb remarked.

“I feel like, and so many people feel like that he was elected because of the Obama backlash. We fear this new Governor in education. Educators are scared of him, I’ll just tell you right now.”

Republicans fear Republican policy

Cobb asked the all-Republican delegation to support local teachers, regardless of incoming ideology.

“So much of what you represent here are Republicans,” he told Legislators.

“You’re Republicans, all four of you. I just hope that as [Scott] brings in his policies, that you won’t forget your Republicans in Santa Rosa County who are educators and just go along with him because he’s a Republican with everything that he says.

“With all this talk of virtual schools, and charter schools and possibly not funding public education appropriately, we’re very scared.”

‘They’re not mad, they’re scared’

Despite Florida’s general, and Santa Rosa’s sharply conservative bent; Cobb says the new Governor’s policies are out of sync with local needs.

“…he’s an outsider to our state,” he noted. “I’m Southern boy, I’ve been here my whole life. I don’t feel very comfortable about this man coming in my state and not fully understanding.

“Not understanding Santa Rosa County, not understanding Gulf Breeze Middle School. Not understanding what our state has meant in education, and we definitely fear this man.”

“There’s been a lot put on the table about cuts and this and that, and I just hope that as you gentlemen interact and deal with our new Governor, that you won’t forget these educators that are scared,” Cobb added.

“Who are scared about their future. Who are scared especially about their retirements and where that’s going, and I’m telling you, they’re scared.”

“I mean, I can’t tell you any more passionately. And I’m telling you now, and I speak for so many people who you’ve never met, that they are scared of where we’re headed with education. They’re not mad. They’re scared.

Tea Partyer at heart

Cobb says he’s a Tea Partyer at heart.

National Tea Party political candidates earlier this year, including Rand Paul and Sharron Angle, advocated abolishing the U.S. Department of Education and instituting ultraconservative policies like charter schools and vouchers. Paul later backed off calls to abolish DoE. Governor-elect Scott also supports private school vouchers.

Cobb said educators fear the fallout from backlash politics.

“And please,” he said, “as this Obama backlash – and I don’t like him either. I don’t like anything the man stands for;”

“as it continues in our state; and I’m glad of that, I really am; I’m proud. I’m a Tea Partyer at heart, O.K., I’m a Tea Party activist at heart, I’m a real American.”

“I just hope that as you try to work with the money in our state, that you won’t work with this Governor and balance everything on the backs of the educators in this state.”

Something’s wrong… I don’t know what it is

Legislation currently under development won’t be exactly like SB 6, Representative Clay Ford said.

“I would encourage the teachers to get their input in,” he remarked. “Try to turn it into something you can live with, don’t just sit back and say, ‘I don’t like it, so I’m not going to play.’ You don’t get to do that in team sports.”

“…something’s wrong with the system and I think most of the legislators genuinely want to try to fix it. Help us figure out how to do that,” Ford added.

“Something’s wrong with the system when fifty percent of the honors students when they get out of high school have to have remedial work in math and science. Something’s wrong with that kind of a system. I don’t know what it is. It’s not Gulf Breeze Middle School. But there’s something wrong and a lot of people out there agree with that statement.”

They’d drill holes in the paddles to make sure you’d raise welts, and I appreciate that.

Recalling his own schooling, Ford said nobody wants to punish teachers.

“We all had a bunch of them growing up,” he noted.

“I did and some of them, early stages, would swipe me across the hand with a ruler. And later on it was a two-handed paddle by some of the coaches…and I deserved every one of those paddlings I got.

“You can’t do that nowadays, but they’d drill holes in the paddles to make sure you’d raise welts.

“And I appreciate that, that was part of molding young people. I don’t know that I advocate doing that now, but we have a problem in the schools. Not necessarily your school, but out there somewhere so we gotta figure out how to fix it.”

Gaetz majored in Religion, Political Science and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration. He served as the Okaloosa School Superintendant and on the School Board, but has no classroom or in-school administration experience, according to his Senate biography.

Ford is an attorney and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration. His Florida House bio does not list any teaching or schools administration experience.

Evers’ biography lists his occupation as farmer/businessman, and does not cite any classroom or schools administration experience.