In Response to Governor DeSantis's Teacher Pay Proposal
In the wake of Governor DeSantis’s proposal to increase teacher base pay in Florida to $47,500, Bay News 9 reached out to ask if I wanted to offer a comment. The parts of the interview that made it into the final clip last night do carry my general sentiments about the proposed increase: that it is a nice gesture, but overall it’s fairly hollow, disrespects our existing and veteran teachers and falls well short of what is needed.
When they call you mid bedtime routine to come give a quote, this is what you get.
What did not make it into either interview I’ve done recently are several key points about what needs to be done. As a person who strongly dislikes when someone comes across as only pointing out problems without offering any solutions, I want to assure you all that is not the case. A few proposals in brief
A doubling, if not tripling of our current education budget. This ties directly into the next few lines.
Salaries for not just instructional staff, but all staff needs to be increased. Our support staff in ESE, ESOL, Behavior Specialists, bus drivers and para-professionals is criminally low. In addition, our on-site staff, the plant operators, secretaries, data entry technicians, and beyond are also woefully underpaid to point that long term retention is very difficult.
School infrastructure is disturbingly far behind in many schools. Whether its broken AC systems, flooding grounds, or simply decrepit buildings beyond due for update, the physical structures of education are falling farther and farther behind. New schools are built at a snail's pace, and old schools often stave off refurbishment with a new coat of paint and a replacement of some doors.
We need a staggering increase in the number of schools, teachers, and staff so that we can reduce the student:teacher ratio, have smaller schools, and better community engagement that will boost education in all forms.
And as always, the people want to know, where will the money come from. First, minimize waste in state and district Education budgets by eliminating all standardized testing and superfluous data monitoring. Second, end the siphoning of public funds into private hands through our states growing adoption of charter schools. But beyond that, Florida is now the 3rd largest state in the US by population and we are the 3rd fastest growing state by population according to US Census data. All of the people who want to inhabit this state, visit this state, or do business in this state need to contribute to its success. A tax on business, a tourism tax, maybe we can finally legalize recreational marijuana and tax the heck out of that just like Colorado and other states have.
The US is the wealthiest it has ever been. It’s not a question of is there enough money, it’s question of how to extract it, and not allow it to be hoarded by those who are purposefully dodging their responsibility to pay their fair share.
And a final piece that got left out, which is something that I’ve repeated often, is that it is time for teachers and those who support us to stand up, speak out, and push back against our state leaders. It is time for us to use collective action to make ourselves heard and demand better not only for ourselves, but for the students, residents, the economy, and the future of our state.