Palm Beach Post
March 31, 2023
Gov. Ron DeSantis has launched an all-out attack on educators, our collective voice, our freedom to teach and our students’ freedom to learn. He is stripping away the rights of teachers, support staff and faculty. In the process, he is harming our students.
As an art teacher for 22 years, I can promise you, what we are seeing from the governor is an utter misrepresentation of the word freedom.
It’s offensive to tell me I can’t decide what to do with my own paycheck, but SB 256/HB 1445 does just that. Educators currently have the right to deduct many items from their checks — health and life insurance, gym membership, union dues. More than 500 options are available for payroll deductions in some districts. This bill attacks just one of them — my right to deduct union dues.
It’s more offensive to try to silence my voice by blocking my ability to join with my colleagues to advocate for our students and professions. If SB 256/HB 1445 passes, teachers and staff won’t even have a chance to join their union unless a supermajority of local educators gives them permission.
Speaking of union membership, my colleagues and I chose to join of our own free will. Anyone who says otherwise is, at best, confused. We chose to have dues deducted and can just as easily stop it. I don’t need a ‘bill of rights’ that leaves me with fewer rights.
This attack on the freedom to join a union is one more in a long line of insults lobbed at teachers, staff and faculty since the governor took office. We have new laws that threaten to punish educators for teaching honest history, ban books from our libraries, and undermine our ability to meet the needs of our most vulnerable students. Instead, lawmakers should be supporting kids and the people who, next to parents, care about them most.
Like many Floridians, teachers and staff are struggling to pay housing and insurance costs. We hear about big pay increases but DeSantis’ $20-a-week plan is too paltry to make a real difference. It’s also a slap in the face when you realize Florida ranks 48th in the nation for average teacher pay.
It’s no wonder that my colleagues are leaving the jobs they love in record numbers. There are already hundreds of thousands of Florida students without a full-time teacher. You can’t retain and recruit educators by attacking our rights to join a union and govern our own paychecks. Attempting to silence the people who serve Florida’s children will only worsen the educator shortage, leaving more students without professionally trained teachers and staff to meet their needs.
If lawmakers want to talk about paychecks, I’d recommend they focus more on increasing what goes in and less on what I decide to take out.
Clinton McCracken is a 22-year art teacher and the president of the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association. He was named the 2022-23 National Magnet Teacher of the Year.