DeSantis allocating $1.5B for Florida teacher raises, aiming to lift minimum pay to $50K

PENSACOLA, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis is celebrating improved numbers from the state’s Department of Education.

The numbers show more students are showing improvement in the classroom as Florida is spending a record amount of money on its education system.

“For the first time ever, more than 60 percent of Florida students at or above grade level in both English, language arts and in math,” DeSantis said.

The governor cited his changes to the state’s assessments as one of the reasons for the improvement.

He got rid of the one end-of-year assessment and replaced it with three progress exams taken by students throughout the year.

“Rather than do one high stakes end-of-the-year test, we could do periodic assessments throughout the year and we can call that progress monitoring,” DeSantis said. “It’s less about a high stakes, ‘have you crammed enough to do the test?’ and more about a more accurate assessment about how these students are progressing throughout the school year.”

The governor also announced additional funding to help raise teacher salaries across the state.

Florida is setting aside more than $1.5 billion to improve teacher salaries.

DeSantis is hoping this money will help boost Florida’s minimum teacher salary from $39,000 per year to $50,000 per year.

“I said, ‘look if we’re going to do this, I want it to go into their pockets,'” he said. “In order to recruit new teachers, you need to have better salaries than where we were at.”

The governor’s address comes after the Network for Public Education ranked Florida last in support for K-12 public schools.

The report criticized Florida for sending billions of dollars to support private schools and its low teacher pay.

Governor DeSantis says his policy changes in education have improved Florida’s education system.

“I think this innovation was the right way to go,” he said. “I believed in it, it made sense. I thought it would be good for students and now we’re seeing this is really paying off.”

Escambia County schools superintendent Keith Leonard says the state’s progress monitoring exams have been successful. He adds this year’s allotment for teacher pay raises will help with staff retention.

“Personally, anything that helps increase the salary of our teachers, we are appreciative of,” Leonard said. “Cost of living is going up — whether that’s groceries, gas, affordable homes. It’s not getting less expensive, it’s only costing us more.”

DeSantis is set to sign the state budget with those teacher pay raises on July 1.

The state is also setting aside an additional $200 million for teachers who have worked for more than 10 years.

DeSantis added school districts can opt to supplement the state’s teacher pay raise funding with their own funding.