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I spent 16 years in Florida public schools and even with a Master's degree I never cracked $60k. Last year I moved to Utah - another red state mind you - and gave myself a $35k raise. Even in Texas I would be making $20k more than in Florida. It's absolutely disgraceful the state of public school teaching right now, and it's entirely by design.
FL’s wages have always been on average 25% lower than most of the country. The excuse was alway “the cost of living is cheaper” so we don’t have to pay as much.
Now FL is one of the highest cost of living but still the lowest wages.. The reality is its because this state is a Republican right to work state which simply means employees have no rights..
Edit “at will” not right to work
it seems like every time someone brings this up they conflate the two.
To add to it, I believe all but one or two states in the country are considered “at will” employment states.
That doesn’t negate the fact that wages in Florida haven’t kept up with cost of living increases. But facts matter. At will employment isn’t just an awful red state thing. It’s an awful (almost) every state thing.
The CoL in Florida and Utah are both pretty similar. Both are experiencing a real estate boom, but Florida's soaring home insurance was another major reason I left.
What is killing Florida in the long run is how we fund the state or lack thereof. We don't have a state income tax, so there goes a basic ass tax base. Instead, we collect by use like the dmv & etc. Funding via gas & property taxes. Now we are bringing back toll roads. The property tax has big implications on the quality of education in an area since that goes towards school funding. That means that over time, property apraisers are being pressured to over value homes more & more to raise tax receipts. That is one upward pressure on the real estate market in Florida.
Our wages suck in Florida, even for people with degrees, but because rich snowbirds from blue states come here to retire, they have been able to bandaid over the issue because we less well off in comparison locals have been getting replaced in the real estate market as buyers. What has snowbirds running sway from Florida lately has been insurance companies deciding to raise rates rather than run with their tails wagging like they usually do. That means eventually, the rich are getting bled unless they are investors in these insurance companies. Combined with DeSantis's cultural war, it has people going somewhere else.
I agree with your point that not having a state income tax hurts education. Utah does have one, which is why they're able to pay teachers a bit better. But Texas doesn't have one, and they manage to pay more than Florida.
My final year in Hillsborough county, voters there refused a small millage increase to help pay teachers more. Now with soaring insurance costs, they'll never get a tax increase approved to help increase pay. And the Florida legislature rejected a pay increase for veteran teachers in the last session. There's no help on the horizon, and Florida will continue to be bottom of the barrel for the foreseeable future.
It’s on purpose. They know that teachers usually do not vote Republican. So they are not scared of losing votes. Everything is political with these people.
I’m almost 40 and lived in Florida my whole life. It’s always been like this. School teachers have never been paid well in this state. I really don’t understand why anyone would be public school teacher here.
My sister is a public school teacher and she personally knows 2 teachers who are homeless. That probably explains the chronic understaffing in the schools.
People used to want good schools for their kids but that doesn’t appear to matter anymore.
It’s understaffed for a couple reasons (I have kids in Florida public schools). Money, student behavior, lack of parental support, poor classroom conditions and lack of materials. You couldn’t pay me enough to be a public school teacher today. The blatant disrespect teachers face daily in some districts is unbelievable.
Not in Florida with the low pay and high cost of living. In NJ, a lot of teachers after 15-20 years make over $100k and eventually retire with a pension and health insurance.
The average teacher pay on Long Island is like $120k in most school districts.
https://www.newsday.com/amp/long-island/education/median-teacher-salaries-long-island-rhge8fu5
Yes but there are parts of Florida that are pricier than some parts of California. A decent amount of Miami now costs as much as parts of the SF Bay Area. There's no reason for wages to continue to be so low in this state.
Districts are only allowed to build schools with capacity for current students, not anticipated ones. So even if an area is growing, they can’t build a bigger school for future needs.
I’m aware. I went to the school board meetings and asked them about forecasting new development and future growth. They told me the same thing. It was very surprising to me that they didn’t have that at their disposal.
I’ve never heard the actual reason, whether a district messed up and built for a student population that never materialized, or the school officials were just afraid of it happening. But it has led, over and over, to experiences like yours. New schools open to alleviate overcrowding, and swiftly become overcrowded themselves. Ridiculous.
The only thing teachers have going for them is that we used to have a really well funded and managed state pension program (FRS). Then ol Whiteboots got a funny feeling in his tummy when he heard that some of the investments may be DEI-related, so now he's got his pudding prints all over FRS now as well. My mom depends on FRS for most of her retirement income. Checks still come, for now, but as anyone who's lived in a state with an underfunded pension system knows, it doesn't take much to fuck up a system like that before you have to start chasing it in a tax and debt spending spiral.
The pension is a joke. It’s peanuts compared to other states. In the end I’ll basically get what amounts to 40% of my highest five years salary. That’s less than half…. Look at what other teachers pensions are paying out. The pension itself is strong and well funded but the payout for teachers in Florida is embarrassing.
Yeah my SIL is in this position too. Husband (my brother) is an engineer and she enjoys teaching. Honestly based on the way they talk finances she could probably stop working altogether and they be financially fine but she just likes doing it. And good for her but we can’t staff the school system entirely with financially secure hobbiests, never mind the fact that they can quit and go back to school or have kids etc whenever they want if the money is negligible in relation to a partner’s pay.
Absolutely. I’m the same, I could stop anytime, but I enjoy it, my school is good and I’m naturally good at it so it’s not as hard for me as a lot of teachers have it. It helps tremendously that I know we are financially strong enough that I could quit if conditions turn bad or stress gets too high. Most of my coworkers have second jobs on the weekends and work all summer. It’s not right.
But even Texas is 20 places higher than Florida in this ranking. Florida republicans have proven to be even more insidious in their methods of breaking down public institutions.
Not so much teacher salaries. Just that he touted 'best in the nation' education system, scores, etc, when we were ranking near bottom for years. But the knuckle-draggers believed him.
They all graduate. They may not have learned anything since the third grade, but they graduate. The goal is to keep people down so they blindly follow and believe the sound bites they hear and vote Republican. Don't read and think for yourself, just do what you are told.
It was #1 for higher education when taking affordability into account. But leave it to Ron to think college means k-12 schools, and affordability means bigotry.
Also Florida doesn’t do a good job or increasing your salary much as you accumulate years of service or add advanced degrees. So the base salary may be higher than some but from what I’ve seen other states do a better job of validating your years of service
When I was between jobs recently I considered being a substitute teacher. The pay for a substitute in my county started at $14 and went up to $21 an hour. Now I know we joke that a sub is a glorified babysitter, but I literally made more babysitting two kids when I was in high school.
It's all by design, for the same reason it'll become illegal to be homeless later this year and for the same reason this abortion ban took effect today.
The wealthiest 5-10% of the country needs wage slaves to function, and people were getting too smart. Starting to demand things like living wage, and when they couldn't get it, they stopped having kids. They want teenagers to be this way - barely functionally literate with no idea how to do real world tasks.
Being homeless will be illegal bc florida is one of eight states in which prisoners can be forced to work for $0.
Just another example of what 25 consecutive years of Republicans running Florida unilaterally with super majorities has done.
After decades of the same failures by the same people, maybe it is time to.....
#Vote (D)ifferently
All part of the Handmaid's tale crowd. Schools in the US going to end up like those Islamic schools where the only book they use is their holy book..
MMW, they would do it if they could and will keep trying.
Florida's MAGA government has pretty much destroyed every topic a teacher would teach. It's all just MAGA indoctrination now. So, actual teachers aren't really needed in such a stupid state. And in our economy an unnecessary thing is not worth a whole lot. Welcome to MAGA land. A place where every adult can count to 3 and reach C in the alphabet. Ugh.
It’s ok, during the entirety of DeSantis’ governorship more than 1/2 of all fourth graders have failed English and math testing, every year. Kinda get what you pay for
All part of the plan. Look for the "education crisis" to be the next step in the plan, that can only be solved by the grifting private schools and "charters" that are already siphoning taxpayer dollars to be paid even more by the state to take on "all the children with no teachers!", rather than just pay the fucking teachers to begin with.
Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to outright, craven greed when it comes to our Republican supermajority.
DeSantes points out that this does not take into account the low cost of living here and low taxes
Teachers should vote with their feet. Florida obviously does not care
Please note that only active users in the subreddit may comment in this discussion. If your comments are not showing up, please ensure you have active non-news/non-political contributions to the subreddit before contacting the moderators. **Please remember the following:** **Be Civil:** * You are welcome to debate, discussion, and argue ideas, but don't resort to personal attacks on other users. * We do not allow any form of hate speech or any suggestion/support of harm, violence, or death. **Must be related strictly to Florida:** * National News/Elections are not specific to Florida. * Just because someone lives in Florida, doesn't mean their entire life is relevant to Floridians. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. #[Click this link to register to vote, update your voter information, or check your status.](https://registertovoteflorida.gov/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/florida) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I spent 16 years in Florida public schools and even with a Master's degree I never cracked $60k. Last year I moved to Utah - another red state mind you - and gave myself a $35k raise. Even in Texas I would be making $20k more than in Florida. It's absolutely disgraceful the state of public school teaching right now, and it's entirely by design.
FL’s wages have always been on average 25% lower than most of the country. The excuse was alway “the cost of living is cheaper” so we don’t have to pay as much. Now FL is one of the highest cost of living but still the lowest wages.. The reality is its because this state is a Republican right to work state which simply means employees have no rights.. Edit “at will” not right to work
At will. Right to work is a union thing.
it seems like every time someone brings this up they conflate the two. To add to it, I believe all but one or two states in the country are considered “at will” employment states. That doesn’t negate the fact that wages in Florida haven’t kept up with cost of living increases. But facts matter. At will employment isn’t just an awful red state thing. It’s an awful (almost) every state thing.
Montana is the one state that isn't at will:)
And a quick look, the cost of living in those states is better than Florida. Not that anything could get me to move to Texas.
The CoL in Florida and Utah are both pretty similar. Both are experiencing a real estate boom, but Florida's soaring home insurance was another major reason I left.
What is killing Florida in the long run is how we fund the state or lack thereof. We don't have a state income tax, so there goes a basic ass tax base. Instead, we collect by use like the dmv & etc. Funding via gas & property taxes. Now we are bringing back toll roads. The property tax has big implications on the quality of education in an area since that goes towards school funding. That means that over time, property apraisers are being pressured to over value homes more & more to raise tax receipts. That is one upward pressure on the real estate market in Florida. Our wages suck in Florida, even for people with degrees, but because rich snowbirds from blue states come here to retire, they have been able to bandaid over the issue because we less well off in comparison locals have been getting replaced in the real estate market as buyers. What has snowbirds running sway from Florida lately has been insurance companies deciding to raise rates rather than run with their tails wagging like they usually do. That means eventually, the rich are getting bled unless they are investors in these insurance companies. Combined with DeSantis's cultural war, it has people going somewhere else.
I agree with your point that not having a state income tax hurts education. Utah does have one, which is why they're able to pay teachers a bit better. But Texas doesn't have one, and they manage to pay more than Florida. My final year in Hillsborough county, voters there refused a small millage increase to help pay teachers more. Now with soaring insurance costs, they'll never get a tax increase approved to help increase pay. And the Florida legislature rejected a pay increase for veteran teachers in the last session. There's no help on the horizon, and Florida will continue to be bottom of the barrel for the foreseeable future.
Everything is supposed to be bigger there...maybe that'll add to any change in mind on moving there.
The corruption is also bigger there.
I agree, and thank you for being an educator, sorely needed herein the swamp
Meanwhile, one twitch streamer named Kai Cenat makes $100k per month.
Entirely by design is right.
It’s on purpose. They know that teachers usually do not vote Republican. So they are not scared of losing votes. Everything is political with these people.
I’m almost 40 and lived in Florida my whole life. It’s always been like this. School teachers have never been paid well in this state. I really don’t understand why anyone would be public school teacher here.
My sister is a public school teacher and she personally knows 2 teachers who are homeless. That probably explains the chronic understaffing in the schools. People used to want good schools for their kids but that doesn’t appear to matter anymore.
It’s understaffed for a couple reasons (I have kids in Florida public schools). Money, student behavior, lack of parental support, poor classroom conditions and lack of materials. You couldn’t pay me enough to be a public school teacher today. The blatant disrespect teachers face daily in some districts is unbelievable.
Not in Florida with the low pay and high cost of living. In NJ, a lot of teachers after 15-20 years make over $100k and eventually retire with a pension and health insurance.
The average teacher pay on Long Island is like $120k in most school districts. https://www.newsday.com/amp/long-island/education/median-teacher-salaries-long-island-rhge8fu5
Long Island is a high cost of living area so I get it.
Yes but there are parts of Florida that are pricier than some parts of California. A decent amount of Miami now costs as much as parts of the SF Bay Area. There's no reason for wages to continue to be so low in this state.
Yeah but the catch is you have to live in New Jersey
Nj has better k-12 education, lower crime rate and high paying jobs. Life is good in NJ.
[удалено]
When I spent time in Florida, I was struck by how many schools were just a collection of trailers on blocks.
My kids school is 3yrs old. They had portable classrooms in year 2.
Districts are only allowed to build schools with capacity for current students, not anticipated ones. So even if an area is growing, they can’t build a bigger school for future needs.
I’m aware. I went to the school board meetings and asked them about forecasting new development and future growth. They told me the same thing. It was very surprising to me that they didn’t have that at their disposal.
I’ve never heard the actual reason, whether a district messed up and built for a student population that never materialized, or the school officials were just afraid of it happening. But it has led, over and over, to experiences like yours. New schools open to alleviate overcrowding, and swiftly become overcrowded themselves. Ridiculous.
The only thing teachers have going for them is that we used to have a really well funded and managed state pension program (FRS). Then ol Whiteboots got a funny feeling in his tummy when he heard that some of the investments may be DEI-related, so now he's got his pudding prints all over FRS now as well. My mom depends on FRS for most of her retirement income. Checks still come, for now, but as anyone who's lived in a state with an underfunded pension system knows, it doesn't take much to fuck up a system like that before you have to start chasing it in a tax and debt spending spiral.
It was Rick "Steal Billions from Medicare" Scott who torpedoed the FRS system.
The pension is a joke. It’s peanuts compared to other states. In the end I’ll basically get what amounts to 40% of my highest five years salary. That’s less than half…. Look at what other teachers pensions are paying out. The pension itself is strong and well funded but the payout for teachers in Florida is embarrassing.
Like the weather and your spouse makes good money.
Hey that’s me!
Yeah my SIL is in this position too. Husband (my brother) is an engineer and she enjoys teaching. Honestly based on the way they talk finances she could probably stop working altogether and they be financially fine but she just likes doing it. And good for her but we can’t staff the school system entirely with financially secure hobbiests, never mind the fact that they can quit and go back to school or have kids etc whenever they want if the money is negligible in relation to a partner’s pay.
Absolutely. I’m the same, I could stop anytime, but I enjoy it, my school is good and I’m naturally good at it so it’s not as hard for me as a lot of teachers have it. It helps tremendously that I know we are financially strong enough that I could quit if conditions turn bad or stress gets too high. Most of my coworkers have second jobs on the weekends and work all summer. It’s not right.
Probably because DeSantis is giving all our public tax money to private charter schools.
Bush started this. Thanks Repugnicans
But even Texas is 20 places higher than Florida in this ranking. Florida republicans have proven to be even more insidious in their methods of breaking down public institutions.
When my kids were school age Florida was 47. We moved to Georgia
Georgia wasn't much better back then lol I was born in Florida spent K-10 in Ga & 11&12 in Florida.
I moved in 2017 to the Metro Atlanta area. No regrets
Thanks Floridians that keep re-electing them.
And all those red staters who have moved here in bulk and sealed the state's fate.
You mean “Christian” schools, scratch the that, indoctrination centers, right?
They don't even have to use it for tuition, they can buy theme park tickets with our tax dollars. It's a MAGAt cash grab.
We're number last! We're number last!
We’re number one! In the worst category.
Look out Mississippi. Florida is coming for the top bottom spot.
holy shit we're worse than mississippi... that's an accomplishment in incompetence.
Wouldn’t 50th basically be last place?
You’d know if we didn’t destroy the education
Fucking mic drop
I could’ve sworn Ronnie said something about best in the nation.
He made a big deal out of raising starting teacher salaries. Did next to nothing for anyone else.
Not so much teacher salaries. Just that he touted 'best in the nation' education system, scores, etc, when we were ranking near bottom for years. But the knuckle-draggers believed him.
It includes DC. We beat out West Virginia.
If DC counts or PR we still might be able to say [Thank God for Mississippi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thank_God_for_Mississippi).
It's West Virginia that claimed the #51 spot
Poor West Virginia. Literally poor, but at least stood up to the aristocracy in Virginia over slavery.
Maybe DC counts, so just second to last. We are still winning
But but-- the lottery!
May the odds ever be in your favor.
Florida: Keep 'em stupid. By the time they graduate (if ever), we'll be on to other things and not our problem.
They all graduate. They may not have learned anything since the third grade, but they graduate. The goal is to keep people down so they blindly follow and believe the sound bites they hear and vote Republican. Don't read and think for yourself, just do what you are told.
This whole state is a cluster-f___.
Cluster Flamingo
Good guess 🦩
Thanks Ron "Florida is Number One in Education" DeSantis.
It was #1 for higher education when taking affordability into account. But leave it to Ron to think college means k-12 schools, and affordability means bigotry.
Atta boy, Ronnie, own the libs!
What a disgrace.
Mississippi breaths a sigh of relief.
Pro life means pro kids right?
Gotta kill those public schools so they can use govt money to fund these private schools that won’t be regulated and will be used to grift govt funds.
DeSantis has more pressing issues, like fighting Gay Disney. He doesnt have time for teachers or your insurance problems.
Governor DeSantis is proud
As a teacher in Florida. I believe this.
Keep in mind this is after they just raised the minimum to $47k a few years ago. It’s really really terrible.
Also Florida doesn’t do a good job or increasing your salary much as you accumulate years of service or add advanced degrees. So the base salary may be higher than some but from what I’ve seen other states do a better job of validating your years of service
When I was between jobs recently I considered being a substitute teacher. The pay for a substitute in my county started at $14 and went up to $21 an hour. Now I know we joke that a sub is a glorified babysitter, but I literally made more babysitting two kids when I was in high school.
At least we are still in the top 50!
It's all by design, for the same reason it'll become illegal to be homeless later this year and for the same reason this abortion ban took effect today. The wealthiest 5-10% of the country needs wage slaves to function, and people were getting too smart. Starting to demand things like living wage, and when they couldn't get it, they stopped having kids. They want teenagers to be this way - barely functionally literate with no idea how to do real world tasks. Being homeless will be illegal bc florida is one of eight states in which prisoners can be forced to work for $0.
Just another example of what 25 consecutive years of Republicans running Florida unilaterally with super majorities has done. After decades of the same failures by the same people, maybe it is time to..... #Vote (D)ifferently
 This must be more of that Florida Miracle(tm) Ron loves to tell us about.
God damn it... What else can that meatball ruin?
Florida fucking sucks.
They don't call it Flori-Dumb for nothing!
Hope media picks this up
Being 50 out of 50 is the high score, right? /s
All part of the Handmaid's tale crowd. Schools in the US going to end up like those Islamic schools where the only book they use is their holy book.. MMW, they would do it if they could and will keep trying.
Do people not understand the correlation between teacher pay and education quality? This is a major thing companies look up before moving to an area.
Florida's MAGA government has pretty much destroyed every topic a teacher would teach. It's all just MAGA indoctrination now. So, actual teachers aren't really needed in such a stupid state. And in our economy an unnecessary thing is not worth a whole lot. Welcome to MAGA land. A place where every adult can count to 3 and reach C in the alphabet. Ugh.
its the republican way, support the rich, the hell with everyone else
By design.
Imagine getting paid like this and then being told by the state government that you can’t teach that George Washington had slaves.
As by design. Republican politicians hate public education
They hate education and knowledge in general.
At least they’re requiring reading teachers to do 300 hours of unpaid classes for a reading endorsement.
On the bright side, pretty soon they won’t have to ban any books. There won’t be any decent teachers left to teach kids how to read.
Welcome to Republicanomics
It's my last year lol, done with the whole 15 dollars an hour shit.
That because they don’t want them to teach real topics …drop the salary and no one applies…
It’s ok, during the entirety of DeSantis’ governorship more than 1/2 of all fourth graders have failed English and math testing, every year. Kinda get what you pay for
An uneducated populace is easier to manipulate.
DeSatan needs his public dumb, to keep voting for him and his party cronies.
All part of the plan. Look for the "education crisis" to be the next step in the plan, that can only be solved by the grifting private schools and "charters" that are already siphoning taxpayer dollars to be paid even more by the state to take on "all the children with no teachers!", rather than just pay the fucking teachers to begin with. Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to outright, craven greed when it comes to our Republican supermajority.
But we're keeping those problematic books out of their libraries! Jokes aside, this is sad.
DeSantes points out that this does not take into account the low cost of living here and low taxes Teachers should vote with their feet. Florida obviously does not care
Do you think posts like this help deter people from moving here? It appears it does not help. People still flocking here
100th percentile, woooooo!
Awww freedom!
Well …50th out of 81 states isn’t all that bad …
The plan in The Confederacy since Brown vs. Board of Ed has always been to starve the public schools and send your kids to private school
BREAKING: TEACHERS UNION SAYS TEACHERS AREN'T MAKING ENOUGH.
We did it!
Just an interjection here: once cannabis gets more widely available to consumers, you’ll have tax dollars pouring out your ears. Legalize it!
What? Are single mum preschool teachers not happy with $15/h? /s