Over the past few years there have been countless stories about Florida’s massive teacher shortage and the related issue of Florida’s average teacher salary falling to #50 in the nation. All too often, the story ends there without taking a critical look at how students are impacted by living in a state that is hostile to public education.
The recent release of SAT scores shines a much-needed light on how Florida’s attacks on teachers are felt by Florida’s children. In the past seven years, Florida’s average SAT score has dropped by nearly 70 points, and Florida students currently have the 47th lowest average SAT score in the nation. SAT scores don’t happen in a vacuum — they exist in a system that is interconnected and that is being failed by bad policy.
Florida is full of hardworking, dedicated teachers who are stretched too thin.
Florida is one of the wealthiest states in the nation, yet we rank #50 nationally in average teacher salary. Our lawmakers brag about the strength of our economy, and Gov. DeSantis routinely jokes that Florida’s budget surplus is so large he simply doesn’t know what to do with all the extra money, yet data from the Learning Policy Institute suggest nearly 1 in 5 teachers in Florida are forced to work a second job to make ends meet. The joke falls flat when you meet teachers who have to work two or even three jobs to simply provide for their families. Whether lawmakers want to admit it or not, students are impacted directly when they choose not to pay teachers fairly and not to fund public schools appropriately.
A teacher who works a second job doesn’t have as much time to look over student work and provide individualized feedback that is critical for helping students hone their strengths and improve in the areas where they may struggle. A teacher who is sleep-deprived because they work the night shift just to make ends meet may not be as prepared as they otherwise could be. All workers deserve the dignity of being able to live in the community where they work while only having one job. Voters recognize this and can see that teachers are severely underpaid. They agree that teachers should only have to work one job — so much that in the 2024 general election voters in more than 20 counties chose to raise their own taxes in order to make up for the inadequate education funding coming from Tallahassee.
As any teacher can tell you, a student’s success on the SAT or any other test is not determined on test day itself but in the work and preparation that led up to it. When our state limits teachers’ effectiveness by robbing them of the stability and security that comes from earning a living wage the same limits are placed on our students.
Class Size Matters.
Subject-area expertise does, too.
Students in Florida are experiencing a critical teacher and staff shortage, due in part to the policies that place teachers and staff at a disadvantage in their careers. The fact is, in recent years, teachers in Florida are leaving their professions or the state at alarming rates. There are thousands of professionals around the state who would love nothing more than to return to their teaching career but simply cannot afford to live and teach in Florida. When teachers leave, it means children have less access to a certified professional that can provide them what they need. Florida ranks #46 in the nation in student to teacher ratio. This means students in Florida’s public schools are less likely to receive the individual attention they deserve in order to help them thrive.
It’s not just that Florida’s student to teacher ratio is unacceptably high, far too many of Florida’s children are in classes without certified teachers. In the 2016-17 school year — when Florida’s average SAT scores were 70 points higher — 13% of all English courses in the state were taught by teachers who weren’t certified to teach English and for math it was 7%. By the 2023-24 school year the numbers had jumped to 18% and 11% respectively.
There are myriad reasons why a teacher might not be fully certified in the subject area they are teaching, and a teacher can be a subject-area expert even if they have not yet received their certification. However, the trend of students in classes without certified teachers is moving in the wrong direction. If we assume there are 20 students enrolled in each English course without a certified teacher, the number of students in those courses has risen from 89,960 in 2016-17 to 118,640 last school year.
Parents intuitively know their child benefits when their teacher has small class sizes that is why class size shows up as one of the top choices when Florida parents are asked why they participate in the state’s voucher program. The state’s solution for to this issue is to expand the voucher program, which favors exclusionary practices, no accountability and is driven by corporation who see schools and students as a profit margin to be made. The real solution for students, parents and teachers is to fully fund public education and to pay teachers and staff fair, living wages. If you want to find a way to improve Florida’s average SAT rankings from #47 in the nation, a good place to start is by addressing Florida’s critical teacher shortage and ensuring that every child is taught by professionally-trained, subject-area experts.
Rural Children Left Behind
The effects of a teacher and staff shortage, low pay, and underfunded public schools impact every child in the state of Florida. But those impacts are felt differently depending on where in the state you are located. Fifteen of Florida’s rural counties with a total student population of more than 50,000 students did not offer calculus last year according to FLDOE data. In those counties the average SAT score was 74 points below that state average.
While calculus is not on the SAT, the absence of calculus in these rural high schools speaks to a lack of access to rigorous math courses starting at the middle school level. For the most part, the same counties that don’t offer calculus in high school don’t offer geometry in middle school. Too many students in rural communities enter high school with less opportunities to take advanced math courses than their peers in other areas of the state. This is reflected in school and district grades in these rural counties where they are routinely penalized for being behind the rest of the state in terms of students earning high school credit and industry certification while in middle school. Florida’s education policies place children in its rural communities at a competitive disadvantage not only for SAT performance, but also when it comes to being successful after high school. Rather than penalizing these districts for not offering more rigorous courses in middle school, our state should provide the funding needed to cover additional teachers so children in every ZIP code have the same opportunities for success in math.
Children living in Hardee County deserve the same opportunities as those living St. Johns, but the most recent data from the Florida Department of Education shows a 184-point gap in the average SAT scores. The entire state suffers when Florida fails in its basic responsibility to ensure teachers are paid fairly and schools are fully-staffed with professional subject area experts, and the students in already impoverished, rural areas suffer the most.
Moving Forward
Florida being #50 in average teacher pay, #46 in student to teacher ratio and #47 in student SAT scores are not issues that can be separated from one another. They are systemic issues, symptoms of policy that favors profit over the needs of students. For too long, Florida politicians have downplayed the crisis of low teacher pay and high teacher vacancies. But no amount of denial or scapegoating will change the reality that teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions.
So, to improve student outcomes, the state must expand the financial investment in our neighborhood public schools. That is why we are calling for an investment of $1,000 more per student in the 2025 legislative session. That financial investment coupled with policy changes to address the teacher shortage by focusing on retention, will ensure every child in Florida has a world class public education and that our state’s SAT scores become a source of pride instead of a sign of politicians’ failures.