At a news conference pitched as an announcement on his administration’s efforts to fill thousands of vacant teaching positions caused by Florida’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic and his administration’s demonization of educators, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis decided to end the event by undermining science and efforts to improve classroom instruction in the state, bragging that Florida is “where Intelligence Woke goes to die.”
“Time and time again, I think you see ideology placed over, over data and evidence,” DeSantis says, completely without acknowledging his campaign against “woke” teachers who discuss topics like the history of racial injustice in the United States or the very existence of LGBTQ people is his political ideology, not “data and evidence.”
Surrounded by a lot of white men–with no person of color in sight and one women hidden behind an armed man in uniform–to be fair, in a wider shot showing the 15 people standing behind DeSantis, there was one Black male and two women… and 13 white men, even though 80% of school teachers in Florida are women— DeSantis goes on an uninformed rant about the effectiveness of masking to stop the spread of the coronavirus as well as the purpose of mRNA vaccines. (For the record, no vaccine stops a patient from getting infected; it stops the virus from multiplying in your system and making you sick, and multiple studies have shown wearing masks during the pandemic helped stop the spread of coronavirus.)
The DeSantis plan to fill teaching positions allows for veterans and first responders with bachelor’s degrees who do not have experience or degrees in education to immediately step into classrooms upon passing a state certification exam, with the state waiving the fee for this specific group and giving them a bonus of up to $5,000. Note that people who actually went to college to get their Bachelors and Masters degrees in education get no such financial support.
DeSantis also wants to allow Floridians with just an Associates degree in any discipline to immediately jump in the classroom as an “apprentice”–in a nod to Donald Trump’s canceled television show that saved his finances–even though they may not have any relevant education or experience.