At a signing ceremony last week in Sarasota, where he added three new bills to his culture war belt, Ron DeSantis stood behind a podium emblazoned with a slogan that hailed Florida as “the education state.” It’s this image that he and his fellow Republicans have tirelessly sought to build with a yearslong, multipronged effort to expunge “woke indoctrination” from the state’s public school system.
And yet, ask those on the ground, and that image couldn’t be further from the truth. As Florida’s culture war rages on, educators across the state—which, according to the National Education Association, ranks 48th nationally in average teacher salary—are leaving in droves, with some even retiring early. In January 2019, when DeSantis first took office, Florida had 2,217 teacher vacancies. That number has since more than doubled to 5,294 vacancies as of January 2023, according to the Florida Education Association.
