The state’s largest teacher’s union said the Florida Board of Education blames teachers for what’s wrong with public schools.
Andrew Spar is president of the Florida Education Association.
He spoke in a Zoom webinar following the board meeting and said teachers are leaving “in droves” because of low pay.
“Florida right now ranks 50th in the nation in average teacher pay,” Spar said. “50th, which should be an embarrassment.”
The state leads the nation in teacher vacancies. The Florida Department of Education projects educator shortages for the 2024-25 school year to be 9,827 positions.
FLDOE adds that this total represents “a significant over projection.” Last year almost 9,000 vacancies were projected, but at the beginning of the year, there were only 4,776 vacancies.
Karla Hernandez-Mats is president of the United Teachers of Dade. She said the board members are “negligent” of teachers’ and stakeholders’ needs in districts.
“They want to sit there and high-five each other and clap about things that they’re doing, but the reality is that…the state of Florida is at 50th in terms of teacher pay,” Hernandez-Mats said.
She added that the board does not want to talk about important issues like state standards in teaching AP African American History.
Mats, along with other teachers, spoke during public comment in the board meeting about the state’s Social Studies standards that say students should be taught “slaves developed skills” that could be used for “personal benefit.”
“Slavery did not benefit black people, full stop,” Mats told the board. “Slavery did not benefit black people, full stop.”
Her comments came before the board approved an amendment to add classroom instruction on the September 11th attacks and Asian American Pacific Islanders contributions to society – which board chair Ben Gibson said was an important addition to teaching standards in the state.
“We all remember where we were on 9/11, our students do not because they were not born,” Gibson said.
He added the importance of passing the “lived experiences” and history on to students about the September 11th attacks.
Katie Blankenship, the executive director of PEN America Florida, said while she does applaud those additions the board approved, she still has concerns with the African American standards.
“To insist that there are benefits to slavery is to teach a warped history to our students,” she said.
“You have spent significant time today talking about the importance of learning from our history,” Blankenship added. “Of learning from times where state action has harmed us drastically.”
