In 2023, under the leadership of Gov. Ron DeSantis—a Republican candidate for president—Florida educational policies caught the attention of analysts as exceptional and earned praise from parental rights activists.
Yet a teachers’ organization insists that Florida’s education policies don’t benefit education.
That’s despite the state’s climb from third to first in the nation in higher education, according to an annual analysis by U.S. News and World Report. In analyzing pre-K through 12th-grade education, the publication ranked Florida 14th nationwide.
The 2023 American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Index of State Education Freedom also ranked Florida in first place.
“Florida lawmakers have once again expanded education freedom and promoted parents’ rights while creating a laudable return on investment for taxpayers,” wrote Heritage Foundation analysts in the report.
Still, the Florida Education Association (FEA), the state chapter of the National Education Association (NEA) teachers’ union, condemned many of the policies and targeted Mr. DeSantis with blame.
“Additionally, this new law will hand over that public money to unaccountable, corporate-run private schools. Average Floridians will be helping pay for millionaires and billionaires to send their kids to elite private schools that hand-select their students.”
Conservative-controlled states nationwide have been making moves to enact school choice policies. Those allow parents to move children from failing public schools and put them, instead, into private schools, charter schools, online programs, or homeschooling.
So far, Florida has funded more than 377,000 school choice scholarships, according to a year-end announcement from the Florida Department of Education (FDOE).
And union criticism doesn’t dampen the enthusiasm of Florida’s commissioner of education, Manny Diaz, Jr.
Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice says the facts back up his claim.
“Florida has led in so many ways since COVID,” Ms. Justice said. “Since that moment, Ron DeSantis really has prioritized education and parental rights.”
For example, at a time when other states enacted policies allowing schools to hide child “gender transitions” from parents, Florida told parents the truth, she said.
But there are still areas where Florida can improve, she said.
“Florida may be doing better than other states in the United States of America, but we’re certainly nowhere near where we need to be as far as true academic achievement and unfolding the full potential of every child,” she said.
Parents can sue schools that break this law.
Opponents of the legislation derisively dubbed it the “Don’t Say Gay” law, leading many on the political left to condemn the move by Florida’s lawmakers and governors.
“We worked for three years to get that passed,” Ms. Justice said. Florida’s governor “signed it into law. We were thankful for that.”
Teachers’ unions, however, remain critical of Mr. DeSantis.
Benefits for Teachers
In 2023, teachers received $1.1 billion in raised salaries. Since 2020, Florida has spent $3 billion to increase teacher pay.The same bill establishes teacher apprenticeship pathways, incentives to lure retired veterans and first responders to teach, and offers teachers scholarships to get graduate degrees that allow them to teach dual enrollment courses.
The same poll found general support for ideas the Florida Legislature is considering, such as ensuring the state has highly qualified and certified teachers, allowing experienced teachers to sign long-term contracts with school districts, strengthening the retirement system for teachers, raising salaries for teachers, ensuring schools are appropriately funded, and more.
In the past year, Florida committed more than $6.8 billion to workforce education and training and boosted apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeship training by 14 percent.
Florida also created administrative rules to address which restrooms and changing areas can be used by individuals who claim to be the opposite sex.
The State Board of Education unanimously voted to keep single-sex restrooms and locker rooms for students in kindergarten through college. So males only may use spaces for males, and females only may use facilities for females.
Men and boys who identify as women and girls may not use restrooms and changing rooms set aside for females, and vice versa.
This rule from Florida’s government comes at a time when it’s increasingly controversial about whether people identifying as transgender have a right to use facilities set aside for the opposite sex.
Teacher-Shortage Solutions
Schools nationwide are struggling to find teachers to fill their classrooms.Schools in high-poverty areas have the worst problems finding teachers, researchers with NCES wrote in the report.
Florida schools opened the 2023-24 academic year with about 12,000 vacant teacher and school staff positions, according to an FEA statement in August.
However, new state laws make it easier for Florida residents to become teachers.
For the first time, Florida is offering post-baccalaureate and pre-baccalaureate teacher apprenticeship programs, allowing would-be educators to become teachers without incurring debt. The state put $5 million into the Pathways to Career Opportunities Grow Your Own Teacher Grant, creating no-cost apprenticeship pathways to teaching.
The program is expected to create more than 200 credentialed teachers yearly, according to the FDOE.
The FEA opposed the bill and has filed a federal lawsuit against it. The teachers’ union blames Mr. DeSantis for the waning interest in teaching careers.
“We, as educators in Florida, exercise our constitutional rights, and for doing so, we have faced political retribution by the governor of this great state,” FEA present Andrew Spar wrote in an online announcement about his group’s lawsuit.
“Gov. DeSantis has made it clear that he is targeting educators because we exercise our constitutional right to speak out against attempts by this governor and others to stymie the freedom to learn and to stifle freedom of thought.”
Florida also worked to increase the quality of its teachers, enrolling more than 18,000 teachers in a 50-hour Civics Seal of Excellence course.
Teachers who study this material will be able to teach students how to become a “virtuous citizenry,” the course website said. They also can receive $3,000 for completing the training.
Florida also responded to world events affecting education.
After Hurricane Idalia, a Category 4 storm, slammed into Florida, the state reopened 53 of its 75 school districts within 24 hours after it made landfall. Within a week, all of the state’s school districts were open again.
Mr. DeSantis released $2 million from the state’s disaster fund to six school foundations in counties most affected by the hurricane. The groups used this money to buy supplies for families struck by the storm, according to the FDOE.
“It’s not an accident that Florida is ranked No. 1 in education,” Mr. Diaz wrote.