State Teacher Policy Yearbook: What States Can Do to Retain Effective New Teachers, 2008. Florida

This report presents the Florida edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's 2008 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook." The 2008 "Yearbook" focuses on how state policies impact the retention of effective new teachers. This policy evaluation is broken down into three areas that encompass 15 goals. Broadly, these goals examine the impact of state policy on 1) identifying effective teachers, 2) retaining those deemed effective and 3) exiting those deemed ineffective. While Florida is making progress toward meeting some goals, significant room for improvement remains in many others. The state completely missed four goals, met a small portion of three, partially met four and fully met four, including one best practice designation. Florida's best performances are in its requiring of instructional effectiveness in teacher evaluations, its articulated consequences for teachers with unsatisfactory evaluations, its support of differential pay in shortage subject areas and high-needs schools, and performance pay. The state has the most work to do in making tenure decisions meaningful, closing loopholes that allow teachers who have not met licensure requirements to continue teaching and strengthening some policies regarding teacher compensation issues. Florida's progress toward meeting these goals is summarized. The body of the report provides a more detailed breakdown of the state's strengths and weaknesses in each area. Florida has an overall performance of C- for 2008. Goals for each area are appended. (Contains 57 figures.) [Additional support for the 2008 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" was provided by the Teaching Commission. For the national summary, see ED514690.]