Mark Pudlow Quotations

Until we get the base pay for all teachers up, we are going to have these recruiting and retention problems. It's like putting a fancy porch on your house when your floor is sagging.

We're competing in a market where teachers can get better salaries by going elsewhere.

I think a lot of what he is proposing is intended to put a happy face on the situation without addressing the real problem.

It is a real problem and a real drain on teachers, but I've always found that every time I get an upgrade of technology, my workload doesn't get easier. It's kind of a Band-aid, a little gimmick that he's using to sell teachers on this.

It doesn't look neutral to us. If we're not understanding this and we've been dealing with this for months, how's a teacher going to understand it?

With all teachers suffering because of low pay in a state with high growth in the cost of living, particularly in housing, (Winn's plan) is like putting a big screen TV in your living room and not fixing the hole in your roof.

We thought that it was interesting that the governor enumerated dozens of programs that he was here marketing money for and nowhere in there was there anything for salaries.

We kind of wished he had done a little more in a great financial year to help teachers' salaries and low-performing schools.

As it is, the children in Florida are tested within an inch of their lives, and I don't think they need any more tests.

The state Supreme Court has ruled that vouchers don't fly. This federal rule is just a way around state law, and we would definitely be opposed to it.

Teachers have no way of knowing what to do to get this bonus. Two teachers could do the exact same thing in the classroom and any number of factors could result in one being in the top 10 percent and the other in the bottom 10 percent.

This administration has taken the FCAT as a sole determinant. And now it will determine whether a teacher is doing a good job and we think there is so much more to it. There are so many things a teacher does in the classroom such as, classroom management, understanding his or her students and finding ways to reach the students. This provides a narrow approach to determine an outstanding teacher.

This kind of commitment is what was needed from the start. It's great that they've finally realized that they have a responsibility in the class-size amendment to fund construction.

That's the biggest problem with the McKay Scholarship program. There's no accountability at all. The state really needs to address this problem.

The best solution is to raise salaries. Communities with teachers in low-cost housing isn't an answer.

This is legislation in disguise. If it went up in a bill, it would be debated and be subject to being amended.

I just think he has overreached a little bit.

By measuring things simply on a standardized test, you're never going to get a full picture of education in Florida. There's more individual attention.

He probably overreached a bit in his attempts to get vouchers through here. It's a shame that we had to go to a six-and-a-half year court fight and now another fight in the Legislature in order to affirm the importance of public schools.