Just in: Teachers in Orange County, Florida, defeated a contract proposal by a vote of 4-1.
The contract would have raised wages but increased health care costs which would have left many teachers with less income overall.
The average teacher pay in the county is $49,000.
It is outrageous that teachers are paid so little, and that the state continues diverting public money to charters and vouchers.
What does the future hold for Florida, where education is a political football and held in such low regard?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
2nd homes: https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/vacation.html
Sad that public school teachers have to strike. What is wrong with America?
Let me get my list….
Please don’t trip on it.
We are a no strike state!
West Virginia and Oklahoma are also no-Strike states. The teachers united and walked out.
Striking is successful because public schools belong to communities not businesses. Show them what democracy looks like, Florida teachers.
Thank you Diane for standing behind us!
sadder still that so many states push laws which forbid teacher strikes
It’s illegal for teachers to strike in Florida.
It is illegal to strike in West Virginia and Oklahoma. They went out on strike anyway.
If everyone walks out, no one gets punished.
No guts, no glory.
Thank you DIana for seeing us. Florida, 4th largest state in the country. 46 in teacher pay. Stop the attack on public education. These are your children for god sake.
I thought Bernie Sanders gave a brilliant answer tonight during that debate that relates to this question.
Bernie was asked about “union members” who would supposedly be upset if they had to trade their union negotiated health insurance in exchange for Medicare for All. The implication — showing that the entire journalism establishment has internalized right wing propaganda — is that those “union members” would never ever vote for any candidate who took away their health insurance and gave them Medicare for all instead, and it would guarantee Trump’s re-election.
Bernie’s reply was that not only would Medicare for All be an insurance program that did not require worker contributions, but he made an even stronger point — that if union members didn’t have to keep giving up salary increases in order to have health insurance, they would be in a much better position to actually negotiate for better salaries without a threat that it would mean their insurance was cut.
I’m not a union member, so I have no stake in this, but I thought Bernie’s explanation about why union members should support his proposal, even if it means they might have to give up what could be better health insurance via their union, was convincing.
And, to be honest, I don’t know how many union members even have “great” health insurance anymore.
The district in which I work has negotiated for the last five or six years TERRIBLE insurance. Premiums jump hundreds of dollars every year, and benefits are worse. Getting the insurance to pay is complicated and takes hours on the phone. Copays and deductibles are through the roof. I didn’t even have a deductible five years ago, and now it’s $6000 a year.
I would jump on Medicare for All in a heartbeat, because not only does it cover everyone, but also because private insurance is a total joke.
I think there needs to be a union movement to dispel this myth that is so often repeated that getting Medicare for all would take something away from people.
If unions were stepping up and saying “our health insurance is not good and we are paying through the teeth for it”, it would help change the conversation.
Much kudos to Bernie for his excellent answer, which needs to be stated again and again by he and Elizabeth Warren, with union members in rallies cheering it and waving signs saying we want Medicare for all because our union insurance is not very good.
Florida is the 3rd largest state by population. California is 1st, Texas is 2nd, Floirida 3rd, and NY 4th.
The Florida contract offer was a shell game. Ugly and rightly rejected by the teachers.
Florida disrespects its professional teachers. They are still clinging to the failed notion that merit pay works. The health care benefits are already inadequate as they have been passing a larger amount of responsibility on to the teachers for years. Some districts have capped the district’s contribution at about $3,000 dollars while most family plans are over $12,000.
Florida’s teachers are going to have unite and fight back in order to get a better deal. It is the only way to get the attention of management. There is already a great shortage in the state, and most young people are not interested in a difficult, low paying job with few benefits.
Strike!
Teachers have never been paid what they are worth. As a 40 year veteran and widowed mother , I have spent my career struggling to make ends meet. I love my job! I love helping children discover the joy of learning! But my daughter should not have had to do without because I chose to teach. We are highly trained professionals who should be recognized for our contribution to our society through a salary that reflects our importance to our nation! More and more wonderful teachers are either leaving the profession or never entering it because they are not willing to make their own children pay the price of their career choice. We cannot, as a country, afford to allow this trend to continue!
I’m so tired of having to work a second job and still struggling. I am a professional in one of the most important careers in the world, with a Master’s Degree, yet still feel like I am not regarded as such. Struggling financially wears a person down and we are losing wonderful teachers by the hundreds. Something has to change.
With Trump in the White House and his cronies in the Supreme Court it would seem that in the not too distant future history will have to repeat itself regarding unions. Men literally died in order to organize and fight for workers rights. History has a way of repeating itself. George B. Shaw famously said something to effect that the only thing man has ever learned from history is that man has learned nothing from history.