Florida is struggling to fill over 2,000 positions. Just don't teach in FL!

[OrlandoDem2]

Keep walking away. If you’re in college and want to teach, do yourself a favor and don’t! If you read the link below, send it to someone aspiring to teach in Florida. We are at a breaking point in this state and it’s the fault of the GOP! Salaries rank 45th yet the cost of living is rather high. You can’t pay the bills. Teachers struggle with changing a flat tire because of the cost. They struggle with the cost of healthcare. They struggle with affording basic cable and WiFi bills. I have a colleague who teaches and she has to go to a restaurant with WiFi after work so she can watch TV or use the Internet. It is truly deplorable!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/03/08/why-florida-is-struggling-fill-more-than-teaching-positions/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c7998242904e

[SMoss]

1. Libertarian party, not GOP

Libertarians bought the GOP years ago. They are against public education, and are slowly killing it. They are also trying to kill the Post Office, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, among other gov programs.

[watoos]

2. Back in the 60's,

when I was in college, teacher's pay was pretty low. I remember thinking why would I choose to spend money on my education to be a teacher? College wasn't nearly as expensive back then either.

[OrlandoDem2]

5. It has never been this bad. I've taught since the 1990s. I can't recommend anyone teach here.

[modrepub]

9. Teachers Have Always Been On The Low End Of The Pay Scale

My grandfather was a teacher in Maine back in the 50s and 60s. While my mother's family wasn't poor by Maine standards they had to do things to stretch their budget including a large garden to supplement their food.

The biggest difference from then to today is the cost of a college education. While state schools in my state are still relatively cheap (20k/yr with some scholarships for good students) go to one of the bigger colleges and you'll be looking at $100+ in debt if you or your family don't have the money up front. You can't go to a school like Harvard (unless you get a free ride) and be a teacher, which if you think about it really downgrades our education system. I don't know if exclusive private school pay better but the situation at parochial schools is similar or worse than at the public school level.

I remember when I was visiting one of our state's old "normal" schools (they were the old teacher's colleges) and they brought out one of their older alumni. He had kept one of his original college bills. He had us all guess what his tuition was and I was floored when he revealed his tuition for a semester was under $200. My tuition back in the 80s was about $10k/yr at the one of our big state schools. The days of reasonable college costs are long gone.

[beachbum bob]

3. propert taxes pay a big part of public school expense and why the affluent areas in Florida have

top schools and pay their teachers vs less affluent areas. This is repeated all over america not just Florida. Florida public school teachers need to stage some massive state-wide strikes as its obvious the 'state spending" on education in Florida is dismal.

[Phoenix61]

4. Florida is so focused on the tourism

industry it doesn't see a big need to educate the people who live here. Sadly, we will never get the high tech industries here because there isn't an educated workforce. Incredibly agrivating.

[PeeJ52]

6. We got great high school football teams though, some of the best in the nation.

We have some of the highest recruited college athletes in the country too!

[lark]

7. They pay substitute teachers $10/hr. and they have to be certified first.

My daughter got her degree & certifications and was going to start on her Masters' but she couldn't afford it on a substitute teachers salary. She went to Brazil, taught ESOL, and made as much money as she would have here with housing & Food costing a whole lot less. Risk Scott fucked up the educational system in our state and I'm sure DeSantis won't improve it any being the oligarch repug that he is. He took away incentives for higher degrees, but made the taking of these degrees mandatory which added tens of thousands of dollars of extra costs (over the years) with no extra remuneration from the state. We have had a huge drain in teachers leaving because of his deliberate destruction of our educational system to promotion of charter/religious schools which are not held to any stds. at all.

So instead of teaching college students in the intricacies of the French or Brazilian Portuguese languages, she is a General Manager at a good clean food restaurant and on the fast track for district manager. I really hste Rick Scott and hope I get to see Karma kicking him hard in the ass.

[jayschool2013]

8. I left Florida in 1990 instead of teaching there

I was a reporter at the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, then went to grad school to earn a master's degree in education at the University of Florida in 1990. After my internship in Gainesville, I decided I would rather leave the state than teach in the public schools there. I've had a lovely career teaching in Colorado, Kansas and now Iowa, and I do not miss Florida, in the least.

[MRDAWG]

10. Georgia GOP doing the same. They want to defund public education until it fails**

*

[lastlib]

11. Thomas Jefferson: "A well-educated and insightful citizenry....

...is the arch-enemy of tyranny."

THIS is why the GOPhers are trying to kill off education! They don't want their brand of tyranny to be taken down by a "well-educated and insightful citizenry." The uneducated are more easily duped by the GOP/corporate class, and make more docile servants of the masters. The educated make more trouble for them, and cut into profits. It's that simple.

[ancianita]

12. I'm wintering in Florida and see Florida teachers's orgs' TV ads nightly, begging for teachers.

Defunding is the first step in the four-step agenda to privatize public assets:

1. Defund -- by false cost/benefit analyses
2. Deform through "reform" -- salaries, class size, distorted tests rigged for failure
3. Stigmatize -- all those who resist: teachers, students, parents, liberal media coverage
4. Privatize -- offer "options" like vouchers, "school choice," charters that choose their learners

This model has been used in every state in this neverending divide-and-conquer control of the American body politic.

[OrlandoDem2]

13. If anyone in this thread is inclined, I'd appreciate it if you share on some form of social media.

Thanks! We have to get the word out to hopefully get the citizenry on the side of helping, not destroying, public education.

[PeeJ52]

14. Of course we had two more homestead exemption amendments on the ballot last election...

And people just aren't going to vote to pay higher taxes, so of course Florida residents gave themselves more tax cuts. I don't know who they think pays for stuff around here. My real estate taxes are embarrassing.

[BlueFlorida]

15. No one can live on a teacher's salary anymore

especially in the Miami-Dade area.

We entrust our most prized possessions, our children, to the teachers but don't want to pay them what they deserve. It's a shame.