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This year during National Teacher Appreciation Week, Let’s Do More by Sending a Message

In the previous post on Teacher Voice, I rhetorically asked all of Florida’s Teachers’ Unions, especially the Florida Education Association, “why can’t we do more?”

The simple truth is we can and must do more, and we should do so from now until the coming elections in November. There are fewer than 200 days left until the election, and we should use every spare moment to continue to generate momentum and share our message about the very real plight of public education here in Florida.

The first action we can take is continue to pressure Governor Scott and the Florida Legislature to return for a special session and make a proper investment in our students and their future. At a bare minimum, our elected officials should commit to providing the $400 million that they pledged for school safety and security measures, which ate up all but 47 cents of the roughly $100 increase in per-pupil spending (and that still lags total inflation adjusted spending from a decade ago by nearly $1500).

So how can advocates help make that happen? The FEA just launched a petition that is a snap to sign and share, and it takes less than 30 seconds to do both. Here’s the link to the petition.

In the previous post I also envisioned a “walk-in” happening here in Hillsborough at a minimum, and in all 67 school districts across the Sunshine State if the idea had reached critical mass. For reasons that are too long to enumerate, the idea didn’t get traction, but I think we can do something much simpler and still be highly successful:

Let’s get everyone to wear RED from May 7th through the 11th to coincide with National Teacher Appreciation Week. And by everyone, I mean every single education professional, administrator, guidance counselor, student, parent, community activist…essentially anyone who cares about our students and their future.

Why will this be so powerful? 1) It’s easy; 2) it will send a strong message if we have thousands upon thousands of people doing this; 3) it will be a conversation starter and a chance for every single person working in education to help share his or her story and the current plight of public education here in Florida. As FEA president Joanne McCall said recently, the only way we can change this is at the ballot box, and what better way to continue to gain momentum than sharing our platform by all stakeholders banding together and using social media to spread awareness with the already ubiquitous hashtag #REDforED.

As noted previously, the time for action is now. We must use this week to stand together in solidarity with teachers who have protested or are protesting currently. As this PBS article states, the majority of people in the United States support raises for teachers (although I think the more important point is raising per-pupil spending overall). Even though we can’t go on strike in Florida, if we get the backing of parents and other concerned community members and all take action together it will send a strong message that we intend to change things for the better.

Please share this post and idea with others starting today. National Teacher Appreciation Week is still nearly two weeks away, which gives us plenty of time to organize this simple action. And if we’re lucky, we can gain enough traction to not only make it #REDforED week here in Florida, but across the entire U.S. as well.

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According to Governor Scott’s office, school districts have “plenty of money.”

We’ve had this problem since the Great Recession and Governor Scott came into office, but it’s one that has been largely ignored by Tallahassee: a lack of adequate funding for public education.

To have Governor Scott, Senate President Negron, and Speaker Corcoran tell their version of this story, however, comes across as boastful, always touting “record levels of funding,” despite the fact that superintendents across the Sunshine State point out, most famously by Superintendent Runcie, that Florida ranks 44th in per-pupil funding.

The Tampa Bay Times and Florida PolitiFact investigated these claims of “record funding” and rated them “half true,” and even that’s a stretch in my book.

And then there’s the most recent “plenty of money” comment from Governor Scott’s office when asked about the money allocated for increased school safety and security, which clearly has most school district officials hand-wringing over yet another underfunded mandate from our state’s capitol. His response to districts’ concerns about not having enough funding to cover these increased costs?

Take it out of your reserves.

Meanwhile, the state sits on a $3.3 BILLION dollar cash pile.

Clearly what’s good enough for the goose is NOT good enough for the gander. Why would Republican leadership, the party that champions itself on fiscal conservatism, encourage the school districts to engage in deficit spending? The state has more than enough money to really invest in public education–or at least for these student safety issues–yet it is unwilling to do so.

Many superintendents across the state–including our own here in Hillsborough County–asked the governor and legislators to not take the $400 million for school safety and security from the per-pupil spending, which is exactly what they did. Rather than pay for these additional needs out of the state reserves and then give us enough flexible funding to cover the extra costs, they instead repurposed the money that had been earmarked already for the education budget and left virtually all districts in a mess.

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And yet this lack of funding for school safety and security is only one small aspect of a much bigger, growing problem presented by the lack of public education investment: teacher salaries.

Florida already lags the nation in teacher salary averages (bottom ten states on every list), but the broader trend for all teacher salaries is even more alarming: from 1996 to 2015, adjusted for inflation, the national average of all teacher salaries actually declined by $1500, whereas the national average of all college graduates across the same two decades increased by $6500(!). This represents an average salary gap of 17.5% between public school teachers and their college-educated peers.

Where does that leave us? Just look to West Virginia, Oklahoma, and now Arizona. It is clear that the “Red for Ed” movement is gaining traction and momentum, and it is not just teachers who are threatening to strike if public education is not properly funded. While it is educators themselves who are leading the charge, it is evident that many parents, students, and community members support these teachers and want an increased investment in education, which would mutually benefit everyone.

The students, first and foremost, would have access to recent curricula, upgraded technology, smaller classes, and additional enrichment opportunities that come with greater funding, all of which would make for a brighter future for them and for us all. For the education professionals themselves, higher salaries would be an economic boon for the entire community in which the educators live because it would mean additional dollars spent on goods and services, thereby helping businesses in the local area. In essence, better funding and a proper investment in public education would foster a virtuous cycle of economic activity that will help students gain the best education possible, keep them here in Florida rather than being siphoned off by brain drain, and have them hired by local companies who are growing and expanding thanks in part to the largest public sector workforce in the state being able to live a little rather than work two or three jobs just to make ends meet.

John Romano’s recent column in the Tampa Bay Times highlights many of these issues, particularly how the lack of funding for the school safety and security measure will leave most school districts scrambling to fund this initiative while simultaneously facing increased costs for retirement contributions, health benefits, etc. He suggests that a special session be called to address the issue, and public education advocates couldn’t agree more.

But the truth is we need to do even more than that. A lot more. If our elected officials want to do something about the growing teacher shortage, they will have to make a sizeable investment to public education as a whole. Since Governor Scott came into office, the purchasing power of the “record funding” we’ve been given has deteriorated anywhere from $1400-$1600 per pupil depending on the inflation calculator and dates used. But the point is the same:

Tallahassee created this problem. Now it’s time to fix it.