Florida has a severe teacher shortage that’s probably related to rightwing extremists attacking the profession. Teachers are smeared as “groomer” perverts who want to their turn students queer and make them hate whitey. The privilege of buying your own school supplies isn’t worth this kind of abuse.
Last month, Ron DeSantis, Florida’s wannabe autocrat governor, signed into law a bill that expands the “Troops to Teachers” program in the state. The idea is that this will encourage veterans to pursue teaching careers and fill the thousands of vacancies Florida has projected for the upcoming school year.
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Republican State Rep. John Snyder sponsored this bill, which would equate four years of active-duty military service (with honorable discharge or a medical separation) to two years of college. Veterans would need only two years of actual college credits — with at least a George W. Bush-worthy 2.5 GPA — to qualify to take the five-year temporary certification test.
From WPTV:
“What we did specifically with this bill is allow veterans to receive credit for the time they honorably use in the military and use that in addition to college credits to be able to obtain their temporary teacher certification,” Snyder said. “The last thing we want is a piece of paper to be the barrier between a good teacher getting into a classroom.”
The piece of paper isn’t literally a barrier. It’s more about the educational requirements necessary to teach small humans (and survive the experience). Snyder, a former Marine, gives a one-finger salute to “woke” college: “I would say the skills and abilities a veteran picks up in their time in service far surpass the things kids are learning in college these days.” Or … they are perhaps two very different things. Education majors at liberal arts colleges don’t spend all their time smoking pot and playing hacky sack.
Barry Dubin, president of the Sarasota County Teachers Association, objects to this plan. He said, “You can’t just throw a warm body in a classroom, that’s not the answer.” This pissed off DeSantis, who whined, “Well, I’ll tell you something: People who have served our country are not just some ‘warm body.’ They have a lot to offer our communities.”
Of course, he’s making this a whole “respect our troops” thing, when it’s more about Florida lowering its standards for key positions. During a press conference Wednesday, DeSantis trashed higher education and their woke degrees.
DESANTIS: You give me somebody who has four years of experience as a Devil Dog over somebody who has four years of experience at Shoehorn U and I will take the Marine every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
“Shoehorn University” is not a real school.
Marines apparently received the nickname “Devil Dog” because they fought with such ferocity in World War I that Germans compared them to “dogs from hell.” Who knows how factual that is, but I’m not sure making Germans piss their pants is the best qualification for working with children.
For specific professions, such as teaching, college isn’t “experience” so much as training. There is very little overlap in the training Marines and future teachers receive. This isn’t to say that Marines can’t become excellent teachers or vice versa. I just question altering the required qualifications.
Last week, DeSantis was invited to appear on the next season of ABC’s “The View,” and his press secretary Bryan Griffin (no, not the dog) responded with an itemized list of times a “View” host said something mean about the governor. Marines might give someone this pathetic a Code Red but a teacher has to use other methods with annoying students. Maybe DeSantis and Florida Republicans should’ve realized teaching was a hard job before the state reached this sad point.
[WPTV / Florida Politics]
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