No one will come out and say but the whole movement against WOKE will have some unintended consequences. First, most people are unable to define woke, and what it is! I guess its like pornography; "I know it when I see it". Still, some random right-wing author was asked what he meant by "woke" -- he had just written (this was on Monday of this week) a book on the subject, and could not define it...
Anyway, teachers! The US education system is one of the most expensive in the world (per capita) with only Luxembourg being more expensive. The outcome in the USA has been mediocre, and the PISA scores show it year-after-year, America ranks rather badly. Lower than most of Europe and worse than Canada, where per capita spending is a fraction of what it is in the US.
Despite the overall numbers, it is evident that in many states teachers are poorly paid and rank low on the salary scale, especially in primary and high school. Now certain states (Florida being the best known but not the only one) have introduced "anti-woke" legislation which has had the following impact:
- A substantial percentage of books have been removed from Libraries
- Teachers can now be sued for what they teach in class
- New textbooks on US history do not mention that Rosa Park was black (granted they never mentioned either that she was "planted" to highlight the problem of race in Alabama...
- Certain subjects are forbidden
- There is a growing problem of "unruliness" in the classroom -- partly because many children have been home-schooled for two years, and lack socialization skills
A large percentage of the books in the school libraries have been removed to be "verified" -- a process that will take "several months" according to those tasked with the job of ensuring that books are not "woke" again something undefined, but like pornography... again most kids don't read anyway, still its an indicator especially for teachers of what the world things of them.
Teachers can be called to task, censured, and fired for any number of perceived education "faux pas" again, sometimes teachers are guilty of terrible things. there was a Tick Toc that showed a teachers in class suddenly saying enough and quitting on the spot, and walking out.
Bad behavior has been a growing trend in many aspects of life, a friend involved in the airline industry said that there has been a massive change in behavior between 2019 and 2023 both on the ground and in the aircraft. Granted he said that 90% of these interaction problems were caused by masks...still! It's a problem everywhere.
Looking at raw statistics is helpful to some extent, turnover between 2019 and 2023 has not apparently changed that much in Florida, although Florida "lost" many teachers to the covid lockdown that never returned to the profession. Turnover (not retirements) is around 7%, which is lower than pre-pandemic, but again we are starting from a lower base. Again, everything has to be taken with a grain of salt, because of the pandemic. A lot of new teachers don't make it beyond five years in the profession. So post pandemic and a lot of new teachers we would expect to see high turnover.
However, since teaching is a "vocation rather than a job", it remains that if it becomes too painful, then those whose vocation it is will address the problem, move or quit and do something else (think of all the school bus drivers that never returned). Already, in many Florida public schools, the number of students per teacher is alarmingly high (high 30) which means that the classroom environment is even more difficult. My guess is that there will be many more teachers that leave at the end of the school year (again the idea of vocation), and not return in the fall. Some with high qualifications are moving away from public schools to private schools -- if you are going to be limited in what you can teach "for religious reasons" then might as well do it from the comfort of a private school.
All this means that public education will be gutted in Florida -- which may be the governor's objective making schools into "detention centres" rather than a place to gain an education. Maybe this all makes some kind of twisted sense after all. Policy objectives can be drafted in such a way that you gain a completely different objective.
Comments