>

Florida’s education system is vastly underperforming…
… as planned.
You know it’s bad when even Mississippi is performing better than you. >

Seriously. I lived in FL for a number of years but got out as soon as I could. I have friends with school aged children still living there and they vent to me about the awful education system. >

If only they had a way to change it >

Except its difficult when the opposing viewpoint is shadily egged on by billionaire media corporations and radio stations. There's nothing like that for level-headed politics. It's just hand wringing and trying to 'compromise' (e: actually this is by design, and so neither side is really discontent with the situation. He'll, there was an article about dems funding some of these qanon candidates) >

The GOP likes undereducated masses. >

Idiocracy is a biproduct of conservative policies. >

The idiocracy is obviously the end games. Ignorant masses are easier to control.  That's why they hate Universities and colleges. The more educated someone becomes, the more likely they are to lean left. >

In the words of Stephen Colbert, "Reality has a well known liberal bias." >

Greatest White House correspondence dinner  speech ever. >

Was that the same one where Obama cucked Trump >

No he somehow got asked to do it by the Bush administration, seemingly because someone didn’t understand satire and thought he was actually a conservative. This resulted in one of the most hilariously awkward things you’ll ever see as he absolutely skewers the bush-Cheney administration to their faces while the majority of the audience just sorta sits there in stunned silence. >

The WHCD really makes me kind of annoyed. It's a group of insiders who love their inside jokes and punching at easy targets, but the instant a host goes after enablers (ie. journalists like the Maggie Habermans and Bob Woodwards-post 2020 of the world) their ranks close reeeeeal quick. 
Michelle Wolf got absolutely blacklisted for telling tame AF and accurate jokes about the state of American politics and the relationship between media and bad behavior by people in power and all they wanted to talk about was their disingenuous indignation that Wolf had called Sarah Huckabee Sanders ugly. 
It shows how powerful Colbert's performance was, in retrospect. >

It’s going to get worse with Moms for Liberty (aka the Real Housewives of the Proud Boys) taking over many school boards in Florida. >

They basically destroy the local public schools so they can push charter schools. The result is worse for kids now and in the future >

Ugh. I live in Sarasota and we’re rampant with these smug assholes. During election season the advertisements have bullet points like “wife, Christian, mother” as though these are the required tenets of an electable school board member. Their superior virtue baked into the name: Moms for Liberty. In reality, I look on anyone that flies flags (plural) and throws around words like liberty, patriot, Christian, or conservative as dangerous idiots. >

Maybe it's time to start a group called something like Patriotic Parents for America that supports counter candidates to the talibangicals >

The problem is that that's basically a full time job to counter the non-stop spam of bullshit, and requires extreme passion to the point where it becomes your identity, because that has certainly already happened to them. And generally people who value a good education have much more interesting things to do with their lives than slogging in the mud with a bunch of idiots who argue in bad faith about literally everything all the time to fight over inches in policy change. The idiocy chews up your will to continue and spits out a shriveled husk devoid of motivation and filled with apathy. 
It's much easier to move. Of course that is not the long term solution, doesn't help most people, and is very easy to say to others. But really that's the most practical course of action for most people who find themselves in this situation and want to get themselves out of it. >

Perfectly summed up the shit sandwich I'm eating daily. Friends & family are usually the nail in the ground that keeps us here as well. You learn to compartmentalize. 
-Florida native >

Same over in south Louisiana. (And waiting out for my pension as I am one of the very fortunate few who still have one.)
It also takes a lot of money to move and many people don’t have it. When you live paycheck to paycheck with rising costs, you can’t really save up to move. It’s a privileged position to suggest people “just move” and ignores that many - if not most - cannot because of economics, family responsibilities, jobs, etc. >

I feel like electing a governor that bans math books for being too woke was a bad sign. >

To be fair I was shocked to see a third grade math book that said if johnny and his boyfriend have 12 dollars and a butt plug costs 3.50, how many can they buy? Or at least I think that's what conservatives think is being taught in math class. >

I know you're making that up because the problem has gendered pronouns in it. >

Yes, but conservatives Would believe it. >

The way they tried so had to push the litter box thing makes me definitely believe conservatives would believe that scenario without a second thought. Everything needs to be a culture war for them. >

Culture wars are how the conservative elites distract their constituents. >

If I'm not mistaken it's the GOP's plan to defund public schools to keep the masses ignorant while using the savings to subsidize the private education of their own.  You should know, assuming you've the same public social sciences education as me, that this never ends well. >

Back in 1995, 96, when I had moved down to FL from CT due to my parents getting a divorce. 
Funny thing, in CT, I was always a low B, high C, student struggling with dyslexia and ADD, and could never seem to get out of that average. When I moved down to FL, I suddenly started getting A's and was way ahead of my peers there. So much so, the first grading period I had straight A's and also got student of the month (something like that), met the mayor of the town, and was asked to take the SATs a year early (multiple teachers requested such). At first, I thought it was me and that I had some change of mental acuity. That was short-lived as we went back to CT a year later, I did get slightly better grades, but basically went back to getting mostly B's.
Funny though, not really in the ha-ha sense, but in more a "huh, that's funny"  kinda way. It's just sad that there is not a more standardized curriculum or moreso a better way of funding education equally from state to state, as the way we have it now is atrocious. If you're born in a poor area or a part of the country that doesn't value education as much, you're very screwed! 
I've moved around a bunch in my younger days, from Maine to Florida and in-between, and out amazes me how much what is considered basic knowledge, in the sense of what counts as such in schooling, varies from not just state to state, but county to county. Given most public education is often mostly funded by local taxes, is just a way to continue our ever growing inequality in this country. Another way to ignore those already forgotten throughout history. Another way to keep us all spinning our wheels and wondering what happened to that meritocracy we were always told about. 
One of my biggest eye openers in my youth came from my parents getting a divorce. As I went from the lower- upper class (maybe it was more upper- middle class), to middle class, then to lower class in a matter of a couple years it became apparent how big a role where you are born plays in America. We like to think of the country as homogeneous, but we are so far from such that we basically have a weird ass modern version of feudalism, but more corporate based... Corporate feudalism, I guess?
Tldr:
Just a half awake, 4 am rambling... basically boils down to location and class have so much to do with the education you get. We've been lied to about this place being merit based. Corporate sucks, and this corporate feudalism thing we have sucks. >

One of my friends from grade school did this as well. He was a straight A student already in MN, in the challenge classes and high math also, but nothing extraordinary in context of this peers at the same level. His family moved to Texas and he immediately skipped two whole grades. >

That honestly just sounds like a shitty life hack to graduate faster. >

So, my cousin had a foreign exchange student for about the last 8 years or so. Coming from European (German) high school she skipped a grade coming in. She graduated from American high school and wanted to go to university back in Europe. The problem is, American high school is laughed at by the rest of the educated world. They wouldn't accept her unless she took a year or two of something else, I honestly don't remember what. So she stayed here and went to college. She wants to do a graduate degree but doesn't want to pay US prices. Turns out, our universities are not laughed at by the rest of the educated world and she gets extra credits towards her graduate degree work in Europe. I think she was trying for an Austrian uni, it's been a minute. 
It was just funny to me that coming over she got a boost, and after getting her undergrad she got a boost. It's like a weird kind of education life hack if you want complete shit two years early without being Doogie Howser. >

You can get into German universities after US high school but you need to be loaded with AP classes, and certain subjects  are not negotiable. >

When I lived in the U.S. it was dependent on that states education efforts and the quality of the district. Some schools have exchange programs which are designed to prepare kids for going to university overseas. Other districts don't have such opportunities.
In Alabama you are probably only getting a quality education at 3-4 schools in the top school boards. Few of those schools will have exchange programs.
When I lived in New York the exchange program was open to anyone who met a certain grade threshold, district wide and not by the effort of administrators at the individual schools.
Canada had a better reputation than American schools from my experience, but I only went to one HS in Canada so it could be different. >

I went to a very tiny rural school, basically one high school for two towns because each town didn't have enough for one school. We had no extracurriculars, no electives just basic math English history gym science. Clubs and exchange programs or something I only knew about from movies >

Same with my hometown as well in rural Texas. Football, Band, or Shop: those are the three options. However, when my parents worked hard to get us a better education, we were about a month-ish ahead in most subjects. At least we were taught Spanish beyond conjugation. >

We didn't have football, we had soccer and track >

Define underperforming.
If the intention of the state government is that Florida's children know as little as possible and understand less, then Florida is doing an outstanding job.
Now, provide evidence that ISN'T Florida's goal. >

Is it ‘underperforming’ if it’s by design? >

No, its actually still overperforming until the next generation more heavily endorses book burnings. >

Book burnings are so out of vogue. It just raises interest in the book, sort of a streissand effect. If we buy up all of the media outlets, we can censor any idea simply by not talking about the idea. This is the way. >

It's a feature, not a bug. The less capable a person is to undertake critical thinking, the easier they are to control.   
The Republicans primary objective is to make the electorate as uneducated as possible, and use their propaganda networks to make them adopt the Republicans as their team. Then it doesn't matter how awful their policies and candidates are, so long as they are on Team R, they will still vote for them against their best interests. >

As someone living in florida, I can say that's a fact. All my friends who are undereducated are also Republicans who praise Donald trump and Ron DeSantis. >

If educated voters vote democrat, the secret is to not educate voters, duh. >

We love the poorly educated! 
-- TFG, 2016 >

Florida used to have a good education system. It’s quickly eroding under gqp abuses, and current voter apathy regarding quality education. >


Florida used to have a good education system.

Florida had a decent college and university system, since they copied California.
But they never had a good education system. >

You mean hiring police officers, paying teachers shit and telling teachers how to teach isn't making great minds? Color me shocked. >

I checked out a few of the teacher pay scales. The post [pay… typo] is garbage for the high cost of living at least in the coastal districts I checked. One was at $63,000 if you had a masters and 10 years experience. That’sa joke. >

Cries in Indiana >

Found this article very interesting.  Moved to Florida a number of years ago and my wife was a teacher.  She tried several schools, public, private, and a charter school; found that none would let her teach.  Just wanted her to follow their format.  She left the teaching profession just before COVID.
The articles statement; “Teachers come to hate the test-obsessed model and leave the profession. How has that affected test scores?” rang true to me. >

This.   All my neighbors here were teachers and got out with COVID.  We are in an affluent county with high rated schools.  The problem is the poor pay and the stupid shit like that.  My kids who went public in high school were mostly in specialty programs (IB, AP etc) so they tended to have better teachers >

They're a Republican state and they openly embrace their stupidity. >

don't worry now that Desantis is tackling wokeness and CRT in schools their schools will do better /s >

But I don't understand, they banned talking about gay people in classrooms shouldn't they be #1 across the board?