Achievement-based Evaluations, Merit Pay, and the Elimination of Teacher Tenure:
Causal Narratives and Discourse in Florida’s Media
Christopher Harrison
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Introduction
Recently, education reform vaulted to the top of Florida’s policy agenda, propelled by a
vigorous and contentious debate over two proposals – Senate Bills (S.B.) 6 & 736. These pieces
of legislation, one of which (736) eventually became law in 2011, proposed significant
alterations to the structure of the teaching profession in Florida; teachers, traditionally
compensated through pay scales valuing set characteristics like advanced education or
experience, faced a new system under which performance-based evaluations, strongly influenced
by student achievement data, would be the primary determinant of their salary. Additionally, the
proposals eliminated the traditional practice of granting educators “tenure” through the provision
of long-term service contracts. Each of these reforms engendered powerful reactions from a
variety of actors and interest groups across the state, and an ongoing dialogue regarding teaching,
learning, and the role of the state’s public schools as an institution.
In this paper, I explore the arguments of both opponents and proponents of performance
pay and tenure reform in a dynamic and highly public venue – the pages of the Florida’s major
newspapers. Examination of the discourse that unfolded over the course of several months of
articles and letters reveals that parties on both sides constructed very different “stories” about the
nature of the learning process, and the “causes” of poor student achievement. These competing
“causal” narratives were central to actors’ efforts to portray these reforms as a positive force for
improving student outcomes, on one hand, or ill-conceived and poorly targeted policy, on the
other. To establish a foundation for understanding these narratives, I briefly discuss background
and major features of S.B. 6 & 736 in the first section of the paper. Following this, the
conceptual framework and methods guiding my analysis are discussed. Finally, the paper
concludes with a presentation of my findings, and discussion of the “causal stories” revealed by
the evidence.
Senate Bills 6 & 736
The recent debate over performance pay and tenure elimination in Florida began with the
introduction of SB 6 in March, 2010. Following a period of intense debate, during which
teachers from across the state registered their protests in several highly publicized committee
hearings, SB 6 passed through both houses of the state legislature with support from an
overwhelming Republican majority. The bill ultimately failed to become law, however,
following a veto from outgoing governor Charlie Crist. Following this initial phase of the debate,
the political landscape of Florida shifted significantly; state Republicans strengthened their
position in the legislature, and Floridians elected Republican Rick Scott, who supported many of
the reforms proposed by SB 6, to the governor’s seat.
Senate Bill 736, introduced early in the 2011 legislative session, resurrected the majority
of the policies put forward by SB 6, with only minor alterations. Following a much milder period
of debate and commentary, SB 736 passed through both houses of the state legislature – again,
along party lines. In this case, however, the bill continued to the desk of an enthusiastic
executive; Governor Rick Scott signed the “Student Success Act” into law on March 24, 2011.
Both SB 6 and 736 focused on three main reforms – the reconstruction of evaluation
systems across Florida, linking teacher compensation to performance evaluations, and the
elimination of long-term professional service contracts. Both bills sought to establish strong links
between teacher evaluation and student performance; when it became law, SB 736 mandated that
“at least 50 percent of a performance evaluation must be based upon data and indicators of
student learning growth assessed annually by statewide assessments or, for subjects and grade
levels not measured by statewide assessments, by school district assessments” (Florida State
Senate, 2011, p. 8). Based upon these evaluations, teachers are assigned to a performance
category – specifically, these identify teachers as “highly qualified”, “qualified”, “need[ing]
improvement” or “developing” (in the case of teachers in their first 3 years of employment), and
“unsatisfactory” (Florida State Senate, 2011).
The most contentious elements of SB 6 & 736, in the eyes of many actors, were the
dismantling of traditional pay scales, and elimination of long-term professional service contracts.
Under S.B. 736, districts are required to provide annual salary adjustments for instructional
personnel and school administrators, based upon performance. These annual “salary
adjustments” are reserved for teachers achieving highly effective or effective performance
ratings; unlike bonuses or one-time stipends, these “adjustments” are intended to be permanent
increases to the educator’s base pay (Florida State Senate, 2011). Additionally, both bills
disallowed the provision of long-term professional service contracts by districts; instead, under
the new policy, educators employed after their probationary period are eligible for recurring
annual contracts. Upon conclusion of an annual contract cycle, districts can choose not to renew
contracts without cause (Florida State Senate, 2011).
Conceptual Framework
A key element in understanding how the reforms proposed by SB 6, and later SB 736,
successfully became law in Florida lies with the process of narrative construction, or “framing”,
engaged in by actors on both sides of the debate. A number of authors (Stone, 2002; Mills,
2007; John, 1998; Rochefort & Cobb, 1993; Baumgartner & Jones, 1991) assert that as actors
engage in the policy making process, they “fight with ideas as well as about them. The different
sides in a conflict create different portrayals of the battle – who is affected, how they are
affected, and what is at stake” (Stone, 2002, p. 34). These competing “stories” are “strategically
crafted with symbols and numbers and then asserted by political actors who try to make their
versions the basis of policy choices”; as such, Stone argues, “causal stories are essential political
instruments for shaping alliances and for settling the distribution of benefits and costs” (Stone,
2002, p. 189).
Discourse analysis serves as a method for understanding and exploring the kinds of
competing narratives formulated by actors as they engage in the policy making process. The
competitive nature of policy discourse is highlighted by Fischer (2003), who asserts that
“explanation in the social world can take numerous forms and that no one form is necessarily
privileged” (Fischer, 2003, p. 21). He expands further, arguing that “discourse analysis in politics
begins with the recognition that discourses are distributed across institutions. In addition to the
dominant discourses, competing discourses struggle to gain recognition and power” (Fischer,
2003, p. 76). Stone (2002) also recognizes the competitive nature of political discourse, and
asserts that the process by which problems are identified is a particularly active battleground; she
asserts that “problem definition is never simply a matter of defining goals and measuring our
distance from them. It is rather the strategic representation of situations. Problem definition is a
matter of representation because every description of a situation is a portrayal from only one of
many points of view. Problem definition is strategic because groups, individuals and government
agencies deliberately and consciously fashion portrayals so as to promote their favored course of
action” (Stone, 2002, p. 133). Peter John’s (1998) work asserts the competitive role of narrative
construction in problem articulation and agenda setting, as well; he argues that “political actors
articulate narratives, images and symbols. Participants in politics contest these ideas and seek to
define the boundaries and classify the concepts. These complex disputes are embedded in
different ‘scientific’ causal stories, but in fact they advance political values. The identification of
a cause is vital in the policy process because it can become the way in which policy-makers
identify a policy problem. The side that wins the scientific and expert argument has its policy
preferences satisfied in the form of policy programmes” (John, 1998, p. 157).
Further, Stone (1989) offers a broad typology for classifying and understanding these
competing political narratives. Her framework centers on the assertion that policy actors
construct a variety of “causal narratives” in their efforts to legitimize, or delegitimize, certain
issues or policy proposals. Stone (2002) asserts that these causal narratives “are origin stories,
stories of how a problem came into being” and that, ultimately, “every origin story implies a
resolution” (Stone, 2002, p. 134). As such, she argues that the way that actors construct
narratives about problems have significant implications for the kinds of policies that may
eventually be produced: “causal theories, if they are politically successful, do more than
convincingly demonstrate the possibility of human control over bad conditions…they can assign
responsibility to particular political actors so that someone will have to stop an activity, do it
differently, compensate the victims, or possibly face punishment” (Stone, 2002, p. 204).
Stone’s (1989) model articulates 4 major causal narratives endemic to the political
process– the “accidental”, “mechanical”, “inadvertent” and “intentional” (Fig. 1). Each narrative
is constructed from two primary elements – an “empirical” element that defines the guided
nature of one’s actions, and a “moral” element that asserts the intentionality of consequences
ensuing from those actions. These narratives, according to Stone, are employed by policy actors
as they attempt to shift the “story” surrounding a particular problem or issue to one that is “seen
as caused by human actions and amenable to human intervention” (Stone, 1989, p. 281). This
process occurs in an arena of contested discourse, as “one side in a political battle seeks to push a
problem into the realm of human purpose, [and] the other side seeks to push it away from intent
toward the realm of nature” (Stone, 1989, p. 292). This contest of “causality” forms a dialectical
process in which “blame” for an unfavorable condition may be assigned or deflected, and targets
for policy action identified or negated.
Fig. 1
Stone (1989) asserts that two of these narratives are particularly clear and politically
efficacious. The first – “accidental” narratives – tell a story of unguided actions resulting in
unintended outcomes, and “include natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, droughts and
hurricanes” (Stone, 1989, p. 284). Stone (1989) argues that “accidental” narratives may be
particularly attractive to actors seeking to avoid, or deflect, “blame” for a policy problem, as they
do not construct a causal “story” that frames a problem as resultant of human action or amenable
to redress. Instead, negative consequences are framed as inevitable or uncontrollable – framers
argue that, bereft of human guidance, there is no one to blame. Stone notes that problems framed
by the “accidental” narrative, like natural disasters, are often the subject of wide governmental
intervention, which is itself often accompanied by debate focused on “how human action
contributes to accident or exacerbates its effects” (Stone, 1989, p. 284).
The second of the more “powerful” causal narratives is the “intentional” narrative. Stone
(1989) defines this narrative as framing a story of causation “where an action was willfully taken
by human beings in order to bring about the consequences that actually happened. When the
consequences are perceived as good, this is the domain we know as rational action…when the
consequences are perceived as bad, we have stories of oppressors and victims” (Stone, 1989, p.
284). Stone argues that this type of “causal story” also includes “conspiracy theories”, which
argue for “deliberate but concealed human action” (Stone, 1989, p. 285). The “intentional”
causal frame is considered to be particularly powerful due to its ability to construct
understandings of policy problems that indicate clear villains, victims, and chains of action; as
such, they may direct actors’ attention to direct solutions.
The second pair of narratives described by Stone’s (1989) framework are portrayed as
being less politically useful, in many ways acting as “middle ground” between the two more
powerful causal “stories”. The first of these “weaker” narratives frames problems as
“inadvertent”, resulting from guided action but without intent on the part of the actor; some
examples articulated by Stone include the “harmful side effects of well-intentioned policy” or
“problems such as poverty, malnutrition, and disease” (Stone, 1989, p. 286). She asserts that
“inadvertence here is ignorance; the consequences are predictable by experts but unappreciated
by those taking the actions” and that “these stories are soft (liberal) versions of blaming the
victim: if the person with the problem only changed his or her behavior, the problem would not
exist” (Stone, 1989, p. 286). Finally, Stone (1989) notes that another form of “inadvertent”
causal framing portrays ills as resulting from carelessness, or recklessness, on the part of some
actor(s).
The final narrative articulated in Stone’s (1989) framework deals with “mechanical”
causes; these causal “stories” incorporate “things that have no will of their own but are designed,
programmed, or trained by humans to produce certain consequences” (Stone, 1989, p. 287). She
notes that in stories incorporating mechanical cause, “the exact nature of human guidance or
control is at issue” and that “often a fight about the cause of a problem is a debate about whether
certain people are acting out of their own will or carrying out the will of others” (Stone, 1989, p.
287). Stone returns to the example of malnutrition again to provide an example, referring to
“stories” that frame problems of malnutrition and starvation as the fault of “food processors and
advertisers, in their quest for profits” who “manipulate people into eating junk food and
unbalanced diets” (Stone, 1989, p. 287).
In addition to these “simple” causal narratives, Stone (1989) allows for “stories” that are
more complex than outlined in her framework. These “complex” causal narratives incorporate
efforts by actors to frame problems as the result of long-standing historical structures,
institutions, or “a web of large, long-standing organizations with ingrained patterns of behavior”
(Stone, 2002, p. 195). Stone (2002) argues that within such narratives, “the social systems
necessary to solve modern problems are inherently complex […] in such complex, interactive
systems, it is impossible to anticipate all possible events and effects, so failure and accident is
inevitable. Failures also involve so many components and people that is impossible to attribute
blame in any fashion consistent with our cultural norm that responsibility presupposes control”
(Stone, 2002, p. 195). As such, complex, institutional narratives may be particularly effective for
actors seeking to defend themselves from allegations of blame – Stone (2002) notes that “in
politics, ironically, models of complex cause often function like accidental or natural cause. They
postulate a kind of innocence, because no identifiable actor can exert control over the whole
system or web of interactions. Without overarching control, there can be no purpose - and no
responsibility” (Stone, 2002, p. 196).
Again, as actors construct these narratives, they do not simply coexist within the
discursive space – rather, they “push” and “pull” against one another, as policy makers attempt
to reframe problems in ways amenable to their agenda. Stone (2002) describes this narrative
“combat”, arguing that “as one side in a political battle seeks to push a problem into the realm of
human purpose, the other side seeks to push it away from intent back toward the realm of nature,
or to show that the problem was intentionally cause by someone else” (Stone, 2002, p. 198).
Ultimately, she asserts, “finding the true or ultimate cause of harms in these policy areas is not
what is at issue. Rather, the fight is about locating moral responsibility and real economic costs
in a chain of possible causes. The location is dictated more by the political strength of different
groups than by any statistical proof or causal logic” (Stone, 2002, p. 207). Victory in this contest,
and the assignment of fault and responsibility that it represents, has real implications for policy
action. Mills (2007), for example, in his exploration of policy narratives in higher education,
finds that “a narrative allows participants and audiences to envision results that can grow out of
the past conditions, if only certain actions are taken”. Such “stories” frame actors’ understanding
of potential choices, appropriate “targets” for policy action, and “provide the rationale, under
certain circumstances, for changes in policies and governance structures” (Mills, 2007, p. 166).
Methods
The statements, testimony, and comments made by policy actors during the politically
charged debate over teacher reforms in Florida offer explicit example of actors’ attempts to
construct, and assert, causal narratives within a contested policy context. In order to more
completely understand the nature of these narratives, and the ways in which they are constructed,
this study explores the dialogue generated by various actors as they engaged in debate through
the channels of Florida’s mainstream media. More specifically, a search was conducted for
articles published in four of Florida’s major newspapers – The Tallahassee Democrat, The
Orlando Sentinel, The St. Petersburg Times and The Palm Beach Post; these papers were chosen
due to their status as major news sources in their respective regions of the state, and their
provision of comprehensive access to past articles. Each paper maintains an electronic archive of
published stories; these archives were searched for relevant articles using specific terms,
including: “Senate Bill 6”, “Senate Bill 736”, “merit pay” and “teacher tenure”. Results were
constrained to time periods spanning the legislative sessions in which the bills in question were
debated: 01/01/2010-05/01/2010 for S.B. 6, and 01/01/2011-05/01/2011 for S.B. 736. The
abstracts of articles resulting from the search were then examined, with relevant articles (those
that referenced either Senate Bill, or merit pay/tenure elimination) retained and non-relevant
articles culled; this resulted in an initial pool of 65 sources.
These sources were then read in their entirety, and any articles not containing quotes or
direct utterances from actors – policy actors like legislators, for example, or concerned citizens –
were discarded, resulting in a final pool of 40 articles for analysis. A table identifying these
sources is included as Appendix A. Document excerpts reproduced in the findings section of the
article are followed in parentheses by a document and paragraph number. Document numbers
refer to specific articles or printed letters listed in the appendix. Paragraph numbers indicate
where in the referenced document the excerpt can be found.
These data where then analyzed through the process of directed content analysis (Hsieh
& Shannon, 2005), with the dimensions of Stone’s (1989) framework serving as a priori codes
during the initial stages of analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994). These codes served to identify
actor’s attempts to describe learning as a guided or unguided process, in accordance with the
“empirical” element of Stone’s (1989) taxonomy; similarly, codes were included in the
framework for identifying the “moral” elements of potential narratives that established outcomes
as intentional or unintentional on the part of actors. Additional codes were utilized to identify
the problems identified by actors (i.e. “poor student achievement”) as well as explicitly
expressed solutions (i.e. “performance pay” or “performance based evaluation”).
Findings
Supporters of merit pay and tenure reform in Florida, through their comments and letters
to the mainstream media, constructed a causal story about the nature of public education and
learning that framed student outcomes as a direct result of teachers’ actions, albeit an inadvertent
one. The first element of this narrative, as characterized by Stone’s (1989) framework, constructs
an understanding about student performance that situates it as a guided action on the part of the
classroom teacher. Within this framing, supporters asserted that learning was simply a function
of putting the right person in front of students; as such, policy action, like paying for
performance, targeted the right actors and causal processes necessary for improving the
performance of Florida’s schools.
Florida Sen. John Thrasher articulated this stance in a letter published by the Tallahassee
Democrat, in which he argued that “teachers can't control what their students know when they
show up on the first day of school, but they do influence what they learn during the year in their
classrooms” (32, para. 7). He went on to assert that “education is about recruiting the best and
the brightest to provide our children with world-class instruction that will allow them to compete
and succeed in a global economy” (32, para. 9). From this basic understanding, he argues that
while “we have some outstanding teachers […] we have some who are underperforming who are
being paid at the same level as those highly performing” and that the key to improving the state’s
schools lay with changing the “way we recruit, retain and reward outstanding teachers” (32, para
9).
Other supporters of merit pay and tenure reform in Florida expressed similar sentiments.
Michelle Rhee, quoted by The Palm Beach Post during an event with Florida Governor Rick
Scott, averred that "what's right for kids is having the most effective teachers in the classroom,
and in order to attract and retain the best talent you have to recognize and reward them" (24,
para. 15). Former governor Jeb Bush, a significant figure in Floridian educational policy, agreed
in a letter published by The St. Petersburg Times, stating that “thousands of teachers across
Florida overcome tremendous challenges faced by their students - poverty, lack of parental
involvement, an unstable home life - to ensure their students learn a year's worth of knowledge in
a year's time” (28, para. 11); as a result, he urged readers that “if you believe all children can
learn and that great teachers deserve to be rewarded with higher salaries, then please support
Senate Bill 6” (28, para. 14). Senator Don Gaetz was quoted more bluntly, arguing that it was
“’the soft bigotry of lowered expectations’ for government to inflict mediocre teachers -- or
worse -- on struggling students who have a right in the Florida Constitution to a high-quality,
free public education” (35, para. 7).
The second element of the causal narrative woven by supporters of merit pay and tenure
reform across Florida’s newspaper pages established student performance as an unintended
outcome of teachers’ actions. Under this framing, “negligent” or “lazy” teachers were framed as
impeding student growth; although their role was construed as being negative, and worthy of
dismissal, actors rarely went so far as claiming that the harm these teachers caused was
intentional. These negligent teachers were, however, portrayed as being protected by an
antiquated tenure system, which reformers argued stood in the way of progress. Rep. Paige
Kreegel, for example, was quoted by the Tallahassee Democrat, asserting that "tenure means that
no matter how bad you are, once you've been teaching three years, unless you commit some
heinous crime, you can't be fired…tenure means never having to say you're sorry” (38, para. 6).
Sen. Evelyn Lynn went further in her characterization of the “negligent” teacher, asserting in the
Orlando Sentinel that "I don't want a teacher remaining in the classroom because she has tenure,
and she's sleeping half the time” (4, para. 3). A concerned citizen, in a letter to the Palm Beach
Post’s editor, drew a sharp contrast between “good” and “bad” teachers, asserting that “having
had four children and nine grandchildren attend schools in two South Florida counties, I
observed, as I am sure many other parents and grandparents have, that there are very good and
very poor teachers. The competent ones are self-motivated, dedicated professionals, and the
others are hangers-on until pension time” (22, para. 2).
Supporters of SB 6 and 736 drew a clear line from the causal “story” they constructed
about student achievement and their favored solutions for solving the problem. Actors asserting
the guided nature of teachers’ actions in the classroom as the primary causal mechanism of
student learning, like Sen. Don Gaetz, emphasized that the policy problem at hand lay with the
fact that "the best teachers in the best school district in Florida are valued and compensated about
the same as the worst teachers in the worst school district in Florida" (4, para. 1). This, in turn,
led to a simple solution – in the words of the executive director for Jeb Bush’s education policy
center, "pay teachers more whose students learn more" (4, para. 3). Those “negligent” teachers
whose poor performance led to unintended lapses in achievement, as Rep. Joe Negron asserts in
his letter to The Palm Beach Post, were construed as a "blight on the profession" who “should be
dealt with and […] removed if they're not performing" (18, para. 6). The elimination of tenure
would, if implemented, make doing so significantly easier.
A variety of actors, from teachers to policy entrepreneurs, opposed the reforms put
forward by SB 6 and 736; in doing so, as might be expected, they wove a considerably different
story about the causes of student achievement than proponents did. The individual elements of
their causal story, however, fell within the same constituent categories of Stone’s (1989)
taxonomy – as in supporters’ narratives, student achievement was depicted as the result of
guided action, leading to often unintended consequences. Actors standing in opposition to the
bills, however, diverged from proponents by situating teachers as one of many actors in a
complex system. Within this system, the locus of control over classroom learning was portrayed
as residing with a number of other actors – including parents and students. As such, teachers’
intentions were often rendered irrelevant and learning outcomes ascribed to the choices made by
actors who, in turn, were constrained by often challenging home lives and socio-economic
contexts.
State Sen. Paula Dockery, for example, argued in a letter published by The Palm Beach
Post that S.B. 6 was flawed because “it takes a blame-the-teacher approach instead of
recognizing that individuals have personal responsibility for their decisions and behaviors. The
bill fails to hold parents or students responsible for their own roles in the education process” (12,
para. 6). Michael Rychlik, a concerned teacher, agreed with Dockery’s sentiment, arguing that
“what teachers don't have control over is student and parent behavior. Teachers can't make
students care about their education; they can't force them to regularly attend school; they can't
make them do their assignments or get them to adequately study outside of school. And teachers
certainly have no voice in how parents raise and support their children” (33, para. 8). Susan
Vinson, a special education teacher, also asserted that the real center of responsibility for
learning lay outside the direct control of teachers; she shared that “you would think that, as an
educator who aspires to excellence every day, I would have nothing to fear from this legislation.
I might even earn additional income under such a plan. But I have no such delusion. The
"ingredients" of my class each year are not under my control. I am very fortunate that most of my
students come ready and willing to learn. But not all” (39, para. 3).
In addition to constructing a narrative that placed the locus of control over learning
outside of the classroom teacher, actors opposed to SB 6 & 736 also framed student achievement
as an outcome independent of teachers’ intentions. Many, like one concerned parent writing to
the editor of the Palm Beach Post, asserted that regardless of a teachers’ desire for students to
excel, they faced long odds; he shared that his daughter, a teacher, had:
been beaten and battered (one girl who struck her was 6 feet tall and weighed over 200 pounds)
and suffered other indignities that many of the "regular" teachers wouldn't tolerate. My daughter
doesn't complain because, often, she sees progress in her students and feels that there is no other
job that she would rather have…Now, the Legislature is talking about merit pay, with all pay
raises based on student performance and progress determined by the results of a standardized test.
Many of my daughter's students never will be able to pass any kind of standardized test. Does that
mean that she will not ever receive a merit pay increase (10, para. 10)?
Another concerned teacher concurred with the notion that student outcomes were often
unintentional on the part of educators; he asserted in his letter that it was “a reality that there are
some students, no matter the talent of the teacher, who will not excel. Sometimes they are
recalcitrant, sometimes there is a dearth of intellectual gifting, and then there are times when
there is little or no parental involvement. Faulting a teacher for these failings is patently unfair
(11, para. 3)”.
This general lack of efficacy expressed by teachers created a natural tension with
proposed reforms like merit pay or evaluation systems based on student achievement. Teachers
like Laura Smith, quoted in a story by the Orlando Sentinel, argued that faced with a process
they did not control and an outcome that defied their intentions, they were powerless; she
asserted that "I can do amazing things but the second the kid leaves my classroom and all those
other things come into play, I can't do anything" (7, para. 11). Another teacher, quoted by the
Palm Beach Post, agreed, sharing that while "I love Palm Beach Central and I'm very happy
there”, “I can't risk my livelihood over factors I have no control over" (26, para. 7).
Discussion
Actors on both sides of the vigorous media dialogue over merit pay and tenure reform in
Florida were highly evocative in their construction of “causal stories”. Supporters were clear in
their understanding that student achievement was a direct result of access to a “quality” teacher.
Within this frame, poor student achievement was largely constructed as the guided, but
unintentional product of negligent, or potentially ignorant, teachers – this combination of
elements places it within the realm of the inadvertent narrative described by Stone (1989). Under
this narrative, efforts to reward teachers who “drove” performance were valued as an
appropriately targeted policy intervention; by the same token, efforts to remove teachers who
didn’t “make the grade”, and were potentially responsible for liming students’ growth, were also
seen as necessary.
Opponents of the reforms proposed by SB 6 & 736 painted a different picture; their
narrative conceived of education as a multifaceted process, dependent upon the actions and
choices of a number of actors. This complex causal narrative retained the same basic essence of
the story told by supporters – student achievement resulted from the guided actions of
individuals, for instance, and the positive and negative outcomes were not framed as intentional
on the part of the actors involved. The dividing line on which the two narratives parted was the
issue of locus of control. Supporters of merit pay and tenure reform actively worked to shift the
“story” of classroom learning into a simplified space, in which a clear actor – in this case the
classroom teacher – was responsible for an outcome resulting from their actions (or negligent
lack of action). The complex narrative constructed by opponents, however, distributed “blame”
for poor student achievement among a diverse set of actors – without a clear “target”, merit pay
and tenure reform were framed as “punishing” well intentioned teachers who were victims of the
same broad system that was failing their students.
While the results of this study are not immediately generalizable to other contexts, it does
extend previous scholarly work regarding “causal stories” in a few ways. First, it serves to
validate Stone’s (1989) framework by offering explicit examples of how actors weave together
the “empirical” and “moral” elements that she identifies to craft stories about how problems
come to be. Further, this study highlights the conflict resulting from the clash of two distinct
causal narratives, and extends Stone’s (1989) broad framework by showing how actors may seek
to push policy discourse outside of boundaries of the four traditional narratives by relocating the
locus of control over a problem; in this case, actors standing in opposition to SB 6 and 736 did
not attempt to shift the discourse into the realm of the “natural”, but to disperse the blame
resulting from the “inadvertent” narrative posed by supporters to a wide set of potential actors.
Stone (2002, 1989) accounts for this, to an extent, in her description of “complex” narratives; the
issue of locus of control however, is not immediately defined as the “third element” by which
actors define such narratives. Finally, given the recent proliferation of performance pay and
tenure elimination policies across states, this study serves as a potential starting point for a
comparative study – future research may examine whether or not differing policy contexts
produce different narratives, or if causal narratives may change over time.
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Appendix A: Data Sources
Number
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
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26
27
28
29
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31
32
33
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35
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39
40
Title
Why Teachers, Districts Clash over Merit Pay
Crist Vetoes Merit Pay
Florida Senate OKs Merit Pay, Tougher Graduation Rules
Voices For, Against Merit Pay
Merit Pay Bill Heads to Senate Floor
Gov. Scott Signs Teacher Merit-Pay Bill
Teacher Merit-Pay Bill Races Toward Passage in Florida Senate
Florida Teachers Feeling the Squeeze
It’s About to Become a Nightmare
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor
Make Teacher Evaluations More Objective, Fair
Merit Pay? Teachers Only as Good as Their Students
Nation Watches State Push for Merit Pay
Senate Ties Pay for Teachers to Students’ Scores
Teacher Pay, Security would Be Tied to Tests Under Senate Bill
Time to Rate Teacher Effectiveness by Student Outcome
Florida Senate Drops Tenure for Teachers
House Passes Landmark Bill
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor
Scott’s Advisor – Place Students before Teachers
Uncertainty Fuels Debate over Merit Pay
Under Merit Pay Cloud, Teachers Ponder Future
Crist has More Problems with SB 6 but Still Won’t Say…
Senate Bill 6 Rewards Great Teachers with Higher Salaries
Changes in Teacher Pay, Tenure are Coasting through Florida House
Gov. Scott Signs First Bill – Sweeping Teacher Pay, Tenure, Evaluation
Overhaul
Teacher Tenure bill Headed to Gov. Rick Scott’s Desk
John Thrasher: SB 6 is About Performance, not Politics
Michael Rychlik: This is Not a Great Time to be a Teacher
Florida May Become First State to Implement Merit Pay for Teachers
Senate OKs Bill on Merit Pay, Tenure
Pons Thanking Crist for Vetoing Teacher Merit-Pay Bill
Educators Ask Crist to Veto Merit Pay
House Continues Heated Debate on Merit Pay
Susan Vinson – SB6 Has Many Questions and Offers Few Answers
House Passes Merit Pay Bill
Publication
Date
Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach Post
The St. Petersburg Times
The St. Petersburg Times
The St. Petersburg Times
The St. Petersburg Times
01/24/2010
04/16/2010
03/24/2010
03/27/2010
03/19/2010
03/24/2011
03/09/2011
02/03/2011
04/06/2010
04/14/2010
04/04/2010
04/08/2010
03/31/2010
03/18/2010
04/11/2010
03/25/2010
03/19/2010
04/04/2010
03/11/2011
03/17/2011
04/15/2011
04/02/2011
03/19/2011
01/07/2011
03/20/2011
03/15/2011
04/13/2010
04/14/2010
02/13/2011
03/24/2011
The St. Petersburg Times
The Tallahassee Democrat
The Tallahassee Democrat
The Tallahassee Democrat
The Tallahassee Democrat
The Tallahassee Democrat
The Tallahassee Democrat
The Tallahassee Democrat
The Tallahassee Democrat
The Tallahassee Democrat
03/16/2011
03/29/2010
03/26/2010
03/27/2010
03/11/2011
04/15/2010
04/13/2010
04/08/2010
03/26/2010
03/16/2011