Amid scramble for security, money short for teachers
With teachers walking off the job in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma, demanding higher pay and more money for education, it should surprise no one if this prairie fire were to spread to another Republican-led state, our very own Florida.
Just like the states where we’re seeing teachers taking drastic action to elevate the dignity of their profession — if not simply claim a living wage — Florida dwells in the nation’s nether regions on education spending.
Florida ranks 49th among the states in per-capita spending for K-12 schools, and 35th in teacher pay, according to the National Education Association. Elementary-secondary teachers earn an average $49,199. That’s $9,154 less than the U.S. average.
That ranking won’t improve a bit with the recently approved state budget for 2018-19.
Gov. Rick Scott brags of “increasing per-pupil spending to a record high,” but that’s deceptive.
Most of that spending is dedicated for specific purposes, some good ($400 million to make schools safer in the wake of Parkland), some bad ($41 million for tuition vouchers allowing students bullied in conventional public schools to transfer to charter schools).
Take away all the earmarks, and the increase in per-pupil spending for general purposes is a paltry 47 cents.
In Palm Beach County, that means no new money for teacher raises, district officials say with regret. And forget about starting new educational or enrichment programs. Or covering rising costs of retirement benefits, utilities and other expenses.
The state’s school superintendents, rightfully alarmed, begged Scott last month to call lawmakers back for a special session to approve more money for the public schools. But Scott ignored them and signed the budget on March 16.
Broward County Superintendent Robert Runcie, whose district includes Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, spoke for all the education chiefs. “We are grateful the state stepped up ... to pass a school safety bill,” he said. “However, that I believe is being done at the expense of our core business.”
Before the legislative session started, Scott had asked for an extra $200 per student, which districts could spend as they chose to improve programs and pay for increasing costs. What was approved was an increase of $101.50, half the original request — and again, almost all of that is eaten up by specific earmarks. Example: $145 million to charter schools for maintenance and construction (as opposed to $50 million for the far more numerous conventional public schools).
At the same time, the lawmakers refused to spend $377 million in revenues generated by rising property values, on the ideological grounds that doing so would be a tax increase. And it gave away $170 million in general tax cuts. That’s money that could have improved classrooms.
The lawmakers did, however, see fit to pass a law that’s meant to weaken teachers unions: a local union now must have a majority of a county’s eligible teachers as dues-paying members, or face possible decertification as a collective bargaining unit.
So far, however, the attack is backfiring. The Florida Education Association (FEA), the largest labor organization in the Southeast and a traditional contributor to Democratic candidates, said it’s turning the law into a rallying point for recruiting. It’s added 3,200 new members in the past nine months.
“We saw this coming and know it’s driven by politics, plain and simple,” FEA President Joanne McCall told GateHouse Capital Bureau. “But it’s going to help us. So I say to the Republican Legislature, thank you very much.”
In other words, there is resistance to state government’s continual starving of public schools. In other states that same frustration has boiled over into massive teacher walkouts.
We would prefer not to see that happen here. But who could blame teachers here, both maligned and underpaid for years, if they did?
West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma are much worse off economically than Florida. It makes little sense to see teachers treated so disrespectfully in a state as wealthy as ours. Yet here we are.
It should alarm all of us that the governor and Legislature have rigged school spending in a way that virtually guarantees that teacher salaries, and the quality of education for today’s schoolchildren — tomorrow’s leaders — won’t be improving any time soon.
Per-pupil spending is increasing just 47 cents for general purposes. That’s not enough to raise teacher salaries.