The Florida government is failing our kids and our teachers

I did not even post the link that had to put Florida in there but clearly hated doing so lol. I tried to get the report they used…

International Education Recruitment Report 2023 | Teach Away

But you have to put a bunch of information in to get it. Comical that the report looks at some of the things the site and so many libs cry about Florida being terrible for. Yet Florida does great. Because the DEI nonsense is just that. Nonsense.

 

Florida's test scores are publicly available on the FLDOE website. It is kind of depressing to track cohorts across the years and see their test scores consistently declining. The more time they spend in Florida schools, the worse they do.

 

Florida has the most teaching vacancies in the country. Real world doesn’t line up w/ qualitative survey.

 

The inexplicable thing is why FL does so well with 4th graders. Do they really emphasize K-3?

 

No.

 

Florida has boatloads of people moving in by the minute.
Of course there will be a lag in hiring.
New schools are getting built everywhere in beautiful Florida.

 

So, like slavery was good since it got the most labor out of workers for 0 pay. Thats just good management, right?

 

Something like 10% of FL’s teachers have quit.

Maybe growth plays a role on the other side of that vacancy issue, but at the end of the day the salary gap is an issue. If a teacher can get a big raise by moving to Georgia or Alabama the vacancies are only going to keep getting worse as existing teachers make a move or newly minted teachers start their career elsewhere.

 

Sure if you look at it through a specific lens and just forget it was immoral.

All government sectors should be striving to keep the costs down and be efficient as possible so not to overburden taxpayers. Show me that pay increases will give taxpayers exponentially improved results and I would agree with it.
Moving from 50 to 40 in pay and only getting a small bump from 14 to 13/12, I would see it as a loss not an improvement.

 

I am sure it is available to them under the group insurance. The state may not pay for it but they can buy it at a big discount compared to what someone can buy outside of group coverage. The same as they can buy additional life insurance for them or their spouse.

 

sure, and lower your social security retirement or disability benefits in the future.

 

Those 2 links reference the same poll. But that didn’t answer my question.

Btw, Forbes had Florida as #28th
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/education/teaching/best-and-worst-states-for-teachers/#:~:text=The top five states for,Kentucky, West Virginia and Mississippi.


And this one has Florida as the worst….
Florida ranks worst in Best States for Teachers

 

Since about 1 in 3 of new Fl migrants are over 60, that would not seriously affect k-12. Fl. public school enrollments are actually falling due to school choice. The teacher vacancies are due to working environment, and pay issues.

 

I would suggest that #14 is a meaningless metric in the first place. I partially agree with your point, basically you are referring to productivity, but I don’t think it should be based on nonsensical U.S. news or any other survey with a bunch of qualitative metrics (aka “noise”).

 

It wasnt long ago conservatives in Florida were championing "merit based" pay for teachers, but it seems pretty clear this is what they meant. I'm not sure low pay and high performance is a sustainable outcome though. People do realize they are underpaid and will either leave for other work, or demand more pay from the state.

 

Which is exactly what they should do.
And if the state sees too much attrition then it's their job to become more efficient with what they have or only increase the pay to stop or slow the attrition down. Their job is not to overburden the taxpayer unnecessarily by over paying.

 

Ironically, it’s the looseness and lack of discipline that creates bad behavior in schools.
The left can’t even decide on what gender is…libbie kids and parents are running off the strong teachers.
No teacher with an ounce of common sense would tolerate the craziness the left doles out these days.

 

Pretty obvious the surging vacancy number is a leading indicator of an issue; that attrition is already happening.

“Let’s wait for the next U.S. news report to come out!” is not a serious take. Basically, waiting for a lagging indicator (which may or may not even be particularly credible towards anything in particular even as a lagging indicator).

 

The fact you aren't sure is great

 

We do offer health insurance for full time employees, although I know that isn't industry standard. No PTO unless they are a manager

And as @wgbgator pointed out. Cash tips are quite a benefit.....