Our government continues to ignore the teacher shortage. Florida has the largest shortage of teachers in the entire country. Our government continues to underpay our teachers. Florida teacher average salary is now the lowest in the entire country. It's almost as if they're doing this on purpose. Florida AVERAGE TEACHER STARTING SALARY $47,178 #16 in the nation AVERAGE TEACHER SALARY $53,098 #50 in the nation https://www.nea.org/resource-library/educator-pay-and-student-spending-how-does-your-state-rank America's teacher shortage broken down by state, from Florida to Utah
Yes, as a parent I know what a tough often thankless job it is. I wish the federal tuition giveaway funds went to teachers. Would need to look at the state budget to see where to cut to pay for it.
If the powers that be view the schools as communist/woke indoctrination centers, it is any wonder the funding sucks? They want to go to a voucher system anyway so kids can attend fine Christian schools paid for with tax dollars.
This is a huge problem in Jacksonville right now as they are looking at consolidating schools, and several on the chopping block are A rated Elementary Schools. One a top 20 rated school in the state that people move to that neighborhood for. People are pissed. To this day I don't understand why public funds can be funneled to private schools. If you don't want your kid in public school that's fine. Pay for a private school or homeschool, the way it's always been. But we are absolutely destroying our public education and the accountability at charter/private schools is lackluster at best. It's the worst of both worlds.
Two of the bartenders we just hired are former teachers who this is their first job after quitting education. Better pay, more appreciation, less bullshit. They love it
We moved to Alabama for better pay for me as a teacher, and better schools for our kids. In Gainesville I would have made about 52k, in Alabama I make 66k base, plus another 10k from the state for teaching math. Our district here only has two high schools, neither of which is overcrowded, and has more national merit kids than all of St Johns county combined (St Johns has about four times the student population). This is such a weird timeline.
Florida needs to do a much better job paying teachers a better salary. DeSantis raised the starting pay, but the legacy teachers were left behind. It's a stain on him for sure.
This is the GOP's dream coming true. Gut the public schools and make room for privates/charters. They are all too happy to destroy public education.
I've spoken with enough people who have kids in private/charter schools to know they are also a mess.