Florida has a teacher shortage; here are reasons why. According to an article in the Herald Tribune, only Louisiana, North Carolina, Arizona and Hawaii are worse than Florida on a group of measures such as:
- salaries, pensions, income growth potential
- student-teacher ratios
- teacher turnover, union strength, teacher safety
Florida ranks 41st in per pupil spending. It takes an average of eleven years before Florida teachers can expect to earn $48,000. Unfortunately, a fifth of all teachers resign before the end of their first year. About one-half resign within five years. Which states, according to the financial analysis by WalletHub, are the best states in which to teach? New York, Connecticut, and Minnesota.
The news is not all bad. Across all 25 indicators used to rank states on overall school quality, not only on teaching conditions, Florida ranks 26th.
I was particularly interested in how WalletHub defined ‘school quality’. The measures that used included: performance, funding, safety, class size, and instructor credentials. It would seem from this study that Florida is a ‘middle of the road’ state educational system with a big problem attracting and keeping teachers.