Friday, July 24, 2015

Free Money

The governor of Florida recently signed a new law to get more money into education.  In an effort to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers, he will give $10,000 to any teacher who was rated highly effective last year and scored in 80th percentile on the the SAT or ACT that they took when they graduated from high school.  Not that I am old, but I graduated in 1989.  I remember that I had a 30 on the ACT, which is pretty good. So I qualify for a free "scholarship" of $10,000!   Free money is always nice.  Turns out it isn't that easy to retrieve 27 year old test scores.  So far I have an incredulous e-mail from customer service at ACT explaining that there is no way to calculate a percentile from that long ago and an expired archival report form from the SAT website.  I'm going to keep digging, but I keep asking, who thought this was a good idea?  I even went up into the attic, just in case I saved an old SAT score report in my box of memories.  No such luck. 

12 comments:

Judy said...

I graduated in 1968 and know that my scores were in my permanent file at my high school. Maybe your high school would have yours. By the way, I think Florida has outdone itself for silliness. Since when did a test score equate with effective teaching? I'm a retired teacher from Indiana where we serve up our own brand of educational craziness.

Gail said...

if not your high school are they on your college transcripts?

Sara said...

I hope you get that data from your ACT so you can collect on that. I have to agree with Judy however about test scores equaling effectiveness. Florida's first criteria - scoring as highly effective - now that is a better measurement. But kudos to Florida for trying to do something. South Dakota just keeps setting up new studies to try to figure out how to raise our teacher salaries from 51st in the nation and do it without any new taxes. I have no expectations that anything will come from the newest "study" panel. And no expectations that anything will happen before I retire in a couple of years.

KaHolly said...

Good luck! What a stupid idea. What will they think up next?

Quiltdivajulie said...

What about a high school or college transcript?

Glen QuiltSwissy said...

Wow! how great to get free money! 30 is really really high! You must have been in the "smart kid" group! LOL I think it goes up to 36 if I remember correctly. Frank's girlfriend before me scored a 32. Rebecca. And when we had Carrie, he actually wanted to name her Rebecca! I squashed THAT thought!

Delighted Hands said...

Good luck with the transcript hunt!

Margaret said...

I took my SATs in Canada...20 years before you did. I kept the results slip for years...but doubt I have it now. Good luck with your 'research'! :-)

Kate said...

Good luck with your search!

RED ARROW said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
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