With so many 55 Adult communities in Florida, you would think most school districts would have more than enough money to attract teachers to this worthwhile profession. Without a teacher is like trying to fly without a pilot.

Fact check: TRUE

its a shame but another check mark in the slow disintegration of our wonderful country.

In NY and NJ busses and books are provided to children attending private schools. In NYC where I went to school (Bronx) within three blocks of the PS was a Catholic School, A Jewish School and a private school. Offer the parents the opportunity to send their kids to the school they choose. Where there is the will, they will find a way. With Catholic Schools spending 2/3 of what the PS do per pupil, and getting better results based on standardized test scores, and graduation rates, a parent will do what they must to provide their child a better education. Catholic schools in lower income and newly arrived immigrant communities are closing at record rates. Without vouchers children in these underserved communities will have fewer choices. You and I are most likely close in age. Since we were children in school we have heard that choice must not be offered as the PS needs the funds to improve. Fifty years down the road, several generations of children, they have not improved. It is immoral not to offer these communities the opportunity to choose. We are perpetuating poverty by having children from poor communities attend sub par schools.

These professions are cyclical in that at various points in history there are too many teachers or too few. I remember my daughter considered continuing with her education after college to get her teaching credential but at the time there was a glut of teachers and not enough jobs for them. The legal profession is another one of those careers where there are too few or too many.

We are perpetuating poverty by having children from poor communities attend sub par schools

and how many wonderful brains are we losing by not giving all children the ability to learn.

I cannot remember the details, but I believe several years ago "60 Minutes" did several programs on educators who had gone into the worst schools in NY City and the kids were like sponges, they loved learning and were destined to have a successful life. Kids like this probably add more to a country than a lot of the private schools turn out.

Does anyone ever look at the qualifications level of the people who get voted onto school boards? You only need one loud mouthed parent to get a group of people stirred up and vote in people who are not qualified to decide what type of education your children need.

The average teacher salary in Florida is $51,230.00 (World Population Review). Florida is ranked fourth in the nation for being at or above basic and proficient (NationsReportCard.gov).
The National Median Salary, for 12 months is $45,760.00
The national average salary for teachers K-12 is 66,397.00 for ten months. That equals 79,676.40 a year.
I will leave it up to you to decide if this is underpaid.

So these educators went to the worst schools in NYC, and the students were fabulous and absorbed knowledge like a sponge absorbs water. What then is the issue at NYC schools. If the NH teachers had the kids learning like little Einsteins, the regular NYC teachers must be horrible. Would that be your conclusion?
In 2022, twenty three Baltimore City PS'shad zero students that were proficient in math. Not one student. As there are probably not enough exceptional NH educators to go around all fifty states, maybe we should allow parents to decide what school to send their tax money and child to.

Agreeing that Catholic schools have a better rating than public schools how much is that a result of admission standards to these schools being different than public schools which must accept all children.

My daughter in law is a teacher - a very good teacher according to her reviews. She has taught in schools where the parents considered teachers to be the sole source of the education of their kids who lived in a home environment that did nothing to support the education of their kids. The parents felt no responsibility to encourage their children to do their homework or read. These parents stridently felt that when their kids failed in schools it was the teacher's fault.

Correct me if I am wrong - the parents pay tuition for their children to go to Catholic schools - they care how their children do in school. Since public school is free the parental attitude is not the same. Many of these students go to school because the law requires it.

Since the ratings of public schools is an average of all the students of course Catholic school ratings will beat public schools.

My daughter also has to put up with violent students (and parents) in her classrooms. In private schools those students would be expelled.

Florida is among the five lowest states in compensation for teachers.

Of course teachers are leaving -

In life you generally get what you pay for. Employees should be held to performance and if you have to pay more so be it. NYC has local school boards run mostly by people who have no business running school districts.

I agree with all that you said. At 51,230.00 salary average per school year Florida is at the bottom five. As I mentioned earlier, Florida ranks 4th for students at or above basic& proficient. While admittance is pretty much guaranteed for students starting in K at a Catholic School, the school certainly does have the choice to expel students. That absolutely can play in the favor of the private school.
Assuming we agree on all points, what is the solution? More money would not seem to be the answer. After not seeing an improvement (actually imo it has gotten worse) in fifty years, I propose the voucher so that those parents who do care are not trapped sending their child to a failing school. Doing more of the same should not be acceptable.

I saw this movie when it came out. It is about charter schools. I don't think that you can stream it online without paying for it. I think the Sumter County Library has it. It is listed on their website but the status is withdrawn.

Waiting for "Superman" - Wikipedia

Well you certainly managed to twist that around, didn't you. Where did I say that fabulous NH teachers went to teach in NY?I If you had read it correctly, I mentioned programs I had seen on "60 minutes" where educators had gone into the worst classes in NYC. As I recall the educators were black and I have no idea where they came from, certainly not NH.

Either your reading or comprehension skills need a little work.

For the record, my children were educated in Massachusetts and both went to local colleges. Both my sons now live in NH and are very successful.

Bingo!

Back in the day, Mom and Dad had a talk with me and my siblings: "don't get into trouble at school and complain to us about it, because if you do you'll be in twice as much trouble at home". And they meant it.

Back then, the behavior "problems" most prevalent in our high school was chewing gum in class, running in the halls, and being late to class. A few girls got in trouble for wearing skirts above the kneecap and/or wearing blue jeans.

How does that stack up to today?

It never used to be that way, or at least, it wasn't that way in Connecticut. Teachers in CT were state employees, college education was mandatory. If you wanted tenure you had to have been a teacher for a number of years, following the standards of the educational program, with no disciplinary action against you, and you had to have fulfilled additional requirements to continue your own education (at your own expense).

In other words, you had to EARN your tenure, it wasn't automatic. You earn it by proving you can be reliable, consistent, and respectful of the goals and policies of the school district you're in. Tenure wasn't a guaranteed job for life, but it made it much more difficult to fire someone. There had to be a valid reason to fire them, it had to go through the proper channels, and there would be union representation throughout the process. A valid reason might be - slapping a student. Showing up to work drunk (alcoholics might be offered ONE unpaid sabbatical to dry out and then permitted back for a probationary period). Sexually assaulting a student. Selling or buying illegal or prescription drugs to/from anyone on school grounds. Serious offenses. Not nonsense like "we don't discuss pronouns in class." That's just stupid, and does little other than make the students MORE curious about why it's such a big deal, when they probably never thought it was a big deal in the first place.

Hm - today it's pretty mild compared to the year before I attended high school. 1975 was the year of the "race riot." It wasn't really, but that's how it got described in the newspapers. It was actually started because of a drug deal. The buyer didn't want to pay. I don't remember if the buyer or the seller was white but one was, and the other was black. The white guy insulted the black guy's girlfriend, and all hell broke loose. Over 25 people were arrested, including students from another high school in another town who came over to fight when they found out it had begun.

There was another race riot in 1969.

When I was in Junior High, I got beat up in the gym by a bully because she "heard" that I thought her boyfriend was cute. It was true, I did think her boyfriend was cute. I don't know why she should be upset by that - that's some bragworthy stuff right there, that your boyfriend is not only cute, but other people agree. But she beat me up over it.

Another girl beat me up on the bus because she thought I didn't like her. She ended up suspended for a few days for that incident. Thankfully it ended well - she thanked me for getting her a few days off from school and offered to beat anyone up on my behalf, if I ever needed it done.

Drug dealing was a daily occurrence. During any given class period, you could find people behind the school under a cliff next to the shopping plaza buying, selling, or smoking pot/hash/hash oil. High school kids were dosing out on LSD and windowpane on Friday nights, or getting drunk at the bowling alley because the bartender didn't card anyone there.

Most kids were decent kids. But to say that nothing nefarious ever went on when you were a kid, is pretty ignorant. I mean that word in the strictest sense - ignorant means unknowing. You didn't know about it - but it happened. In every school district in every state in the country, there were kids doing pretty horrible things, and there were kids doing stupid things, and there were kids doing things they weren't supposed to do, whether they were "bad" or not.