Teacher performance pay exploded onto the political and educational scenes during the 2010 legislative session, but it was eventually vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist. Now advisers on Gov.-elect Rick Scott's education team have made some tweaks that might help a similar bill to SB 6 pass in 2011.

Committee meetings for the 2011 legislative session begin Tuesday, and the biggest item on any agenda is Senate Joint Resolution 2, known as the Florida Health Care Freedom Act, which would place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to opt out of the Affordable Care Act.

The highly contentious teacher merit pay proposal that was shot down by Gov. Charlie Crist last spring has re-emerged, but with some preliminary concessions to teachers and also perhaps to Gov.-elect Rick Scott, who -- as the father of a special education teacher -- voiced concerns about the proposal’s fairness to some educators.

The two major party nominees in the race for governor threw some jabs at education Wednesday, setting the stage for what will be one of the hot issues in November’s election.

Emmy award-winning journalist Deborah Gianoulis, a fixture on Jacksonville television as an evening news anchor for almost 25 years, announced Tuesday that she was running as a Democrat against Sen. John Thrasher of Jacksonville, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. Thrasher’s district stretches from Nassau County, through Jacksonville and Duval County, and includes parts of St. Johns and Flagler counties before ending in Volusia County. 

With the session over, Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, wants to focus on his responsibilities as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida as well as his legislative ones.

Having taken over the RPOF after a number of financial scandals under previous chairman Jim Greer, Thrasher now heads the party as it responds to Gov. Charlie Crist leaving Republican ranks to continue his bid for the U.S. Senate as an independent.

Florida's teachers are breaking my heart.

First, I hear with my own ears teachers coaching students as young as 8 years old to lobby legislators for -- let's call a spade a spade -- their own selfish interests. Now I find some 1,000 of them in the Miami-Dade school system choosing to protest passage of the performance-pay bill by calling in sick.

More than 10,000 phone calls. More than 15,000 e-mails and letters. They mostly tell Gov. Charlie Crist the same thing – veto SB 6.

Since Republican lawmakers first proposed legislation in early March that would link teacher pay to student performance on standardized exams, teachers have gone on the offensive -- writing, calling, showing up at legislative meetings, all telling lawmakers that a test can't measure their effectiveness in the classroom.