To address teacher shortages, Florida erases the phrase “teacher shortages”

Today I wanted to take a look at the hot mess that is the state’s legislature.

As lawmakers were unable to do one thing they had to do, hand over the budget – this session is heading for overtime at a cost of around $50,000 a day. But while the budget remains in scope, lawmakers have actually passed a surprisingly solid bill. They also produced some real stench. Today we will be shining some spotlights for each.

But first, I wanted to highlight the issue that flew under the radar – a Congressional attempt to address the state’s teacher shortage…waiting for it…removing the word “teacher shortage” from Florida law.

Florida has long struggled to fill education positions thanks to low wages, with general indecency piling up on educators and alternative teachers protecting classrooms throughout the state. And Florida law now recognizes the issue “congress continues to face a teacher shortage and recognizes few young people who view teachers as careers.”

But instead of fixing the issue, House Bill 1255 simply erases that sentence from the book, along with 13 other references to the word “sufficient.”

GOP lawmakers did the same several years ago when they decided to deal with climate change by removing the word “climate change” from both state law and student textbooks.

It’s an attractive way to deal with problems. If you also remove the references to “cancer” and “hurricanes”, these issues will magically disappear as well.

Naturally, teacher supporters were not impressed. “We had the opportunity to do something in action to address the lack of lawmakers and staff,” said Andrew Spur, president of the Florida Education Association.

Clinton McCracken, president of the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association, said lawmakers bypassed the proposal to ease teacher microcontrollers and concluded that “scrubing the ‘teacher shortage’ from the book will not change what’s going on in our state.”

So let’s take a look at some other issues.

Good: Compensating people who have been wrongly convicted

Last week I wrote a column about how it was in past times for Florida to automatically compensate people who were mistakenly sentenced to prison. Well, right after the line was made public, lawmakers sealed the contract that much.

They removed the rotten provision that refuses automatic payments to those who were mistakenly incarcerated if the person was previously convicted of an unrelated offence. (Like a Brevard County man who accidentally spent 27 years in prison, but was denied automatic compensation when he was 19 years old and owned one Quarudo drug.)

A considerable number of you have asked me to copy me into a letter you sent to lawmakers and correct that loophole. And they did so in a bipartisan way.

Bad: Block citizen corrections

Florida residents used the power of the petition process to implement all sorts of laws lawmakers refused to enact. These include lower class size requirements, restoring the rights of former felons, higher minimum wages, legalized medical marijuana, and more. However, Tallahassee politicians have long hated the state’s constitutional amendment process, as they want to have full control (with the help of fellow lobbyists).

Therefore, this year the majority of GOP passed HB 1205. This makes it difficult for citizens to compress the time frame for submitting signatures and pass corrections (up to $50,000) for errors.

The majority party in the state knew that the anti-democratic bill was unpopular, so Gov. Ron DeSantis, who normally craves media attention, signed the law this Friday night, where no TV cameras were rolling.

Good: Abolish “Free Kill”

A few weeks ago I also wrote about efforts to repeal the law that states that if an illegal death involves an unmarried adult, families cannot sue negligent doctors because of pain or suffering. Other states in America do not have such laws – and for good reason. The lives of single Floridas, including widows, widows and young adults with disabilities, essentially declared that their parents were mourning their loss and were less valuable than the lives of other human beings.

So Republicans and Democrats joined together to repeal this inhuman clause via HB 6017.

Bad: Repealing the school startup law

Two years ago, lawmakers finally spoke to Florida high schools at an incredibly early start time (starting to pick up kids at 5:30am).

That’s something everyone recommends, from the American Academy of Pediatrics to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for Learning and Safety.

But this year, lawmakers repealed the second half of the law for one pathetic reason. They refused to strengthen their funds for bus payments. So, students in Central Florida continue to move towards the bus stop before dawn, more than 90% of American students. And Florida schools, which have historically produced low test scores, remain at the bottom of the fundraising barrel.

Good: State Park Protection

Finally, Floridians voiced the unified opposition last year over the DeSantis administration’s plan to allow hotels and golf courses in state parks. And lawmakers listened and passed the bill to prevent that from happening in the future.

Susanna Randolph, director of the Sierra Club’s Florida branch, said the bill was unanimously passed in both rooms — as lawmakers clearly understood “it’s a green issue, not a blue or red issue.”

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