Busloads of public school teachers trundled up to Tallahassee on Thursday to give lawmakers a piece of their minds.More than 1,000 teachers pressed into the plaza of the Capitol under a gray, 52-degree sky. Holding signs that read: “enough is enough,” the teachers chanted between speeches.
The rally was organized by the Florida Education Association, which represents Florida’s teachers’ unions — and it opposes Florida’s high-stakes testing and merit pay for teachers.“Teachers are not opposed to testing. Heck: we invented it,” said FEA President Joanne McCall from a podium on the Capitol steps. “But Florida’s obsession with testing is cheating our children out of crucial teaching and learning time and they will never, ever get that back.”
“When my children spend the majority of an evening doing homework that is directly preparing them for a test, there is a problem,” said protestor AlvinGainey, a coordinator with the Miami-Dade County Council of PTAs andPTSAs who came up from North Miami. He has three school-aged kids. “We don’t have teachers that have creative freedom in their classrooms anymore — that’s a problem.”Many of the protesters said it was easier to come to the rally because the session started early this year.Most years, the legislative session coincides with testing season.
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