Ep 10: What happened to Florida's education success story? (with Dawne Morison)

Crumbling classrooms. Plummeting SAT scores. Teachers near the poverty line. What happened? 😲

Ten years ago, Florida's education success story was the envy of the nation. Thanks to the hard work of Republicans like Jeb Bush, Florida’s fourth graders had risen from near the bottom of the charts to sixth in the nation for reading and fourth in math.

Then came the budget cuts. Under Governors Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis, funding per student was cut by nearly 14%. In plain English, that means Florida spends 14% less per student than it did twenty years ago, not including inflation. That’s about $3000 less for every kid, every year.

The results are sad. In the last ten years, Florida has erased all its gains. In 2024, Florida’s math scores hit a 20-year low, and reading scores dropped to their lowest level since 1999.

To find out what happened, we're talking to Dawne Morison. She taught first and second graders at a Gainesville public school. Today, she’s an administrator at the University of Florida’s early childhood education program, where she supports and trains teachers.