Florida teachers union blasts Legislature’s ‘policy failures’ for fueling bad student outcomes

The Florida Education Association (FEA) is blasting Republican lawmakers in the majority for not addressing necessary education issues and funding in the 2025 Legislative Session.

The union represents teachers, support staff and higher education faculty. After the 60-day Session concluded Friday without a balanced budget and leaders decided on an extended Session to finish its work, the FEA is continuing to put Gov. Ron DeSantis on notice. The group compared his “flawed policies” to those of former Gov. Jeb Bush, considered one of the fathers of the school choice movement in Florida.

“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),” the group wrote in a statement.

On SAT scores, WESH reported last year that average scores had dropped to 948 in 2024, 18 points lower than in 2023 and 70 points lower than in 2017.

And on NAEP, commonly referred to as the Nation’s Report Card, the difference in Florida’s 2024 score of 243 in mathematics was statistically insignificant from 2022, when it was 241. It was higher than the average national score, at 237. But reading scores suffered, averaging 267 in 2024, a 4-point drop from 2022 and 5 points lower than the national average.

The FEA further noted that “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,” adding that Florida currently ranks 50th in the nation in average teacher pay, including Washington, D.C. That’s in reference to a National Education Association report finding Florida ranked only behind West Virginia.

The FEA argues Florida needs to us “common sense” to improve public education, but lamented that lawmakers ignored needs.

“When this legislative session began — educators expected lawmakers to act on what they said. Lawmakers (who) 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,” the union wrote.

Instead, the FEA said the Legislature failed to “meaningfully address salary compression” to support veteran teachers or to remove red tape for teachers by creating 10-year teaching certificates.

The union is also frustrated over the lack of movement on enacting multiyear contracts or to add transparency to university presidential searches, which as of now do not require candidate disclosure until final stages of the process. Supporters say that’s necessary to attract talent because many applicants wouldn’t want their current employers to know they were on the hunt for a new job.

The FEA statement also complained about a lack of public education funding, including for career and college readiness programs.

All of those items were proposed. None of them crossed the finish line.

“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,” the group said.

Specifically, the FEA is concerned that because lawmakers failed to pass a budget on time, communities waiting on funding — including school districts, public colleges and state universities — are left in limbo, all over what the FEA described as “feuds on politics.”

Calling certain lawmakers in Florida “anti-public education,” the group said Florida is “on the wrong track when it comes to public education.”

“At the end of the day, our students who are not supported are the ones who suffer. Our educators who are forced to walk 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,” the FEA said. “Florida needs a new direction.”

The FEA has about 120,000 members, spanning K-12 teachers, higher education faculty, educational staff, retired education professionals and students seeking careers in education.

The union, as it always is, has been vocal this Legislative Session. In February, the group bashed DeSantis’ proposed budget as “inadequate,” and called on the Legislature to “fully commit to students” and public schools. It lamented sweeping tax cuts in the Governor’s proposal and, while the FEA acknowledged some “nominal increases for educators and support staff,” the group said the proposal didn’t even keep up with inflation.

Last month, the group similarly pleaded with lawmakers to better fund public education, this time noting an increase in per pupil allocation proposed at that time in the Senate budget of just $135, and just $62 in the House. The union called the increases a “cut by another name” and said a “child who was in kindergarten” when DeSantis signed his first budget in 2019 “will be starting middle school” when the upcoming budget takes effect with $400 less in funding when adjusted for inflation.

While lawmakers have not yet passed a budget — they’ve extended the Session until June 6 — it’s unlikely lawmakers will heed the FEA’s call. Budget negotiations were largely hung up on how to provide tax relief to Floridians. But, with the revenue side an open-ended question, there wasn’t much movement on allocations, which leaves at least some room for hope for the FEA, its members and supporters.