Last in Teacher Pay, Florida Continues to Dismantle Public Education, Alienate Teachers and Fund Scandal-Ridden Vouchers

By Diane Roberts

Florida: We’re Number One!

Number One in low teacher pay, that is. We rank 50th out of 50 states.

Average K-12 salaries in Florida hover around $56,000 a year. Lower than Oklahoma, lower than Mississippi, lower than Louisiana.

Lower than Alabama, the frequent butt of book-learnin’ jokes.

Don’t take any crap from us, Alabama — your teachers make an average of $63,000.

You could be forgiven for thinking the state of Florida disdains teachers and devalues education — although, to be fair, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature plan to cough up money for teacher raises this year.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is the raise is only about 1.5%. Inflation is now at 3.8%.

No wonder teachers have to take second, sometimes even third, jobs with Uber, DoorDash, and maid services.

No wonder teachers are leaving Florida, taking better jobs in other states or getting out of the profession altogether.

To state the obvious, nobody goes into teaching expecting big bucks. Most teachers want to share knowledge, instill a love of learning and help kids realize their full potential — wild-eyed romantics that they are.

As one teacher puts it, “Teaching is ultimately an act of hope.”

We want teachers to prepare kids to become productive citizens, thinking members of society, literate, numerate and, fingers crossed, decent human beings.

Maybe $56,000 sounds like a lot of money. Obviously, if you’re one of the 13% of Floridians living below the poverty line or the 34% who are employed but still cannot afford basic necessities, it is.

Studies by various universities, including MIT, show a single person can get by in Florida on about $47,000. But if you have a kid or if your partner doesn’t have a job, you’re screwed.

Contempt

We don’t pay teachers close to what they’re worth.

We don’t properly fund public education, either.

The first public schools in what became the United States were founded in the 17th century. The likes of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson declared an educated populace essential to democracy.

Even during Jim Crow, when Black kids were forced into separate and decidedly unequal schools, states supported public education as a public good and teachers were respected.

These days, teachers get treated with contempt when they assert their expertise or organize to try and better their working conditions.

The governor recently approved a measure to kneecap public sector unions — municipal employees, nurses, bus drivers, doctors, professors, janitors, teachers, etc. At least 50% of employees in any bargaining unit must vote, and 50%-plus-one must vote for the union, otherwise it will be decertified.

This is a strange warping of what we’ve always understood to be democracy. Imagine you’re running for office and win the majority of voters. But if only 49.9% vote, you lose.

Ron DeSantis justifies this by claiming public sector unions, especially teachers’ unions, use dues for “partisan political activism.”

In other words, they tend to support Democrats.

Police unions, which commonly endorse Republicans and Republican causes, are not subject to the new law.

DeSantis signed the bill on May 1, May Day, traditionally a celebration of workers’ rights.

And y’all thought the man lacked a sense of humor.

Even people who should know better throw shade. Leon County School Board chair Laurie Lawson Cox, a former PE instructor, told teachers to stop complaining about low pay or asserting their rights, and to cultivate “an attitude of gratitude.”

Miseducation

Some school boards are actively hostile to teachers, especially school boards with a critical mass of Moms for Liberty members.

While the Moms have suffered some defeats in recent elections, they and their allies still wield considerable power in many Florida school districts.

Teachers are getting fired for daring to call a child by her preferred name without parental permission, instead of one that misgenders her, or accused of “indoctrinating” children by acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ people — now outlawed by Florida’s “Stop Woke Act.”

The Moms and like-minded anti-education conservatives also go after teachers they suspect of teaching too much truth about America’s rocky relationship with race. Dunedin High School history teacher Brandt Robinson got called a “Marxist” for teaching Black history.

History triggers state education authorities, too. Other than books about gay penguins or novels by Toni Morrison, nothing drives Florida politicians to hysterics like suggestions America has not always been a shining example of freedom and justice.

To that end, the state has rolled out a new Advanced Placement U.S. history course as an alternative to the standard high school AP course.

It doesn’t ignore the injustices of the past, but treats them as anomalies, temporary divergences from the march of American greatness.

This course concentrates on our European roots (indigenous people get short shrift), presents American exceptionalism as fact, and stresses the United States is, and should be, fundamentally Christian.

This is on brand for Florida: The state Constitution forbids using taxpayer money for religious schools, but Attorney General James Uthmeier says he’ll ignore the law, insisting Christianity is “the center of the nation’s identity.”

Hobson’s choice

Some content is plain wrong. The course suggests the Constitution is an anti-slavery document when it in fact protects the institution of slavery as well as slaveholders’ property claims to enslaved people.

It also claims the Founders were anti-slavery. Some were, but most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves.

Teachers generally like the truth and know students can indeed handle the truth.

The State of Florida struggles with it.

None of this should come as a surprise. Various governors and their legislative enablers have been trying to control public education for years.

Way back in the late 1990s, Jeb Bush, who called public schools “government-run, unionized monopolies,” pushed charter schools and voucher programs to transfer state dollars to private schools.

Subsequent administrations have expanded “school choice,” at the same time making it their mission to attack public education, encourage book banning, and control curricula.

Now “school choice” is a major cause of the precipitous drop in enrollment. Some districts say they may have to close neighborhood schools.

Evidently, it doesn’t matter that Florida’s voucher system is embroiled in scandal, unable to keep track of its money or the students it’s supposed to support: ill-run, wasteful, and unaccountable.

Transferring money to private and charter schools is more important. Hamstringing teachers’ unions is more important.

Destroying public schools is the plan, and it may be working.

Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.