Why Veterans Aren’t Buying DeSantis Plan to Privatized Public Education

With budget cuts to education all across Florida, and other ridiculous radical implementations on teachers, it’s clear that the thorn in the sides of Republicans – an education voter base – is under a new and half-baked attack from Florida’s governor DeSantis. DeSantis, who served as a lawyer during his short military service, now thinks that Veterans can teach in Florida without the proper education, training, and certifications. Critical thinking has always been something that has scared conservative politicians, but Veterans are having none of it. Here’s what they think about DeSantis’s ill-fated plan (which was spurred by budget and salary cuts that lead to a shortage of teachers in the first place. BTW, these new Veteran teachers would need to be supervised by guess who? other teachers that we don’t have enough of):

Florida vets! I strongly encourage you to not take this offer for a few reasons:

This is extremely manipulative. There’s a teacher shortage because of crappy working conditions and low pay. The Florida government is essentially saying, “teachers won’t even do this job, so let’s have the vets do it! They won’t complain!” You’re seriously setting yourself up for failure and are bound to experience the same burn out the teachers did and the same burn out many of you left the military for

It’s undercutting teachers who are in part, leaving to protest the unfair wages. Teachers are an integral part of society, and for the longest time, society agreed they deserved higher compensation. By filling these positions, you are undermining their movement

We are all very capable individuals, but if you wouldn’t allow someone with no degree to teach at the college level, the same should apply for k-12

If successful, this will catch on across the nation and all teachers will be affected

As someone pointed out to me, it’s ultimately your choice whether you want to accept low wages and poor working conditions. This is simply a strong encouragement NOT to do so!

—

I’m a vet and a Florida teacher. Please do not do this. They’re setting you up to fail and further trying to dismantle public ed with this move.

—

I’m just going to say this, I wouldn’t trust two thirds of my old platoon to change the air filters on their trucks much less entrust them with the responsibility of educating children.

—

Some of the dumbest people I’ve met in my entire life were people I served with, and I cringe to imagine them as teachers. That being said, they could teach the life skills class that includes lessons like “How to not buy a Camaro at 24.9% interest” and “Does she love you, or is she only talking to you because you bought her a $50 shot of juice in the Ville?”

—

They can pay them even less since they are not qualified while also claiming a victory for putting vets and families specifically to work.

—

It’s a political stunt.

—

Came to read the comments and was not disappointed. I’m an Army veteran with a Masters in Teaching from USC. This kind of shit is infuriating. Plus it just goes to show how desperate our country is to solicit our young people to enlist into the military at the expense of our education system.

How much do you want to make a bet that these under-qualified Veteran teachers will be teaching in low-income counties? This type of injustice is NOT what we fought for.

We will leave it at that. If you’d like to read more, you can find the original post here. 

About Once A Soldier: Starting in 2017, our mission is to limit the scars of Veteran suicide. We offer prevention services and postvention services. We reach a national audience and our goal is to become the preferred channel for those who want to help Veteran families who need our services. With 17 Veteran suicides a day in 2021, we believe our two niche services will make a difference to each family and to our nation.