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It’s Teacher Appreciation Week, but the Florida Education Association says teachers aren’t feeling very appreciated by the Florida government.
The state’s largest teachers’ union says the Florida Legislative Session has failed educators.
Andrew Spar, president of the FEA, says policy failures from the legislature have contributed to low test scores by Florida students.
“We need more money. There is no question about it. And the proposals they had in Tallahassee, that they are working on, that both the House and the Senate passed but couldn’t agree between the two chambers, does not have enough money for public schools,” Spar told WMNF.
Spar and the FEA called on the legislature to increase funding by one thousand dollars per student.
“Actions speak louder than words. And while we all appreciate that is Teacher Appreciation Week, and lawmakers will say great things about our teachers in our schools, we want to see actions match that,” Spar said.
He also says public schools have taken a backseat this session.
“We continue to see public schools sacrificed to promote vouchers in charter schools. And since 80% of students attend public schools, like they do in Hillsborough County, that puts our public schools at a disadvantage, and that continues to not be fair,” Spar said.
The legislature considered many pro-charter school bills this session. Including a bill to ease the conversion of a public school to a charter school which passed both the house and senate.
Lawmakers extended the session until June to finalize the budget.
Read the Florida Education Association’s full statement below:
“The Florida Education Association (FEA) has released the following statement regarding the 2025 Legislative Session.
This legislative session, Florida Legislators had the chance to invest in public education, in our students and in our educators. Students today are bearing the brunt of repeated policy failures- an experiment that harkens back to 1999 and the flawed policies of Governor Jeb Bush and continues today with Governor Ron DeSantis.
These policy failures, entrenched in how the legislature does things to this day, have led to continual declines in SAT scores and in reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Further, students in Florida continue to have to move through a teacher and staff shortage that leaves them without qualified, highly trained educators in their classrooms. And when it comes to attracting and retaining educators, Florida is not providing wages that are keeping up with inflation- for the second year in a row the state is ranked #50 in average teacher pay.
We need common sense solutions to public education issues.
When this legislative session began- educators expected lawmakers to act on what they said. Lawmakers constantly talk about supporting educators and leadership even specifically discussed needing to allow teachers to teach and ensuring public schools could compete.
But they didn’t.
They had opportunities to meaningfully address salary compression in a way that would support Florida’s veteran teachers, had the ability to remove red-tape and create 10 year teaching certificates, had the chance to enact multiyear contracts, put university presidential searches back in the sunshine, support students by funding public education and career and college readiness programs, and finally fix the critical teacher and staff shortage.
Many of these bills, despite passing their committees and despite often having support from each chamber, failed to pass. Ultimately, politics got in the way of good policy.
Today, legislators leave Tallahassee not having agreed on a budget- allowing their feuds on politics to leave communities across the state in limbo. Florida remains on the wrong track when it comes to public education. Anti-public education lawmakers continue to fail our public schools.
At the end of the day, our students who are not supported are the ones who suffer. Our educators who are forced to walked away from their profession so they can provide for their families are the ones who suffer. And our communities who lose their neighborhood public schools because they have been whittled away by policies suffer alongside them.
Florida needs a new direction.”
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