The state of science education: Florida

As part of an ongoing series, NCSE is reaching out to colleagues and collaborators to gauge the state of science education in states across the country by posing a similar set of questions to each. In this first installment, we hear from Sherry Southerland, who was the Anne and John Daves Endowed Professor of Science Education at Florida State University (a participating organization, along with NCSE, in the National Academies’ Collaborative for Advancing Science Teaching and Learning in K—2).

In 2025, public education in Florida is struggling. Teacher shortages, always a long-term problem, have become acute. As described by Florida Education Press (FEA staff, 2025), 64% of teacher vacancies (roughly 3000 positions) remain months into the school year. At the same time, the number of out-of-field teachers has increased, with students being taught by long-term substitutes and interns. In some districts, this might include hundreds of long-term substitutes. Taken together, it is clear that thousands of Florida students are not being taught by a well-prepared teacher.

What accounts for this difficulty? There is a decline in the number of students completing teacher education programs. (For instance, in 2023, only six people in the entire state completed teacher education for Earth/Space Science.) This may be due to Florida’s low pay, as the state ranks 50th in average teacher pay among the US (FEA staff, 2024a), resulting in one in five teachers working a second job (Learning Policy Institute, 2024). Too, the state has been the site of widely reported educational legislation that strips professional autonomy from teachers under the guise of parental rights, prohibiting instruction “embracing the concept that individuals share responsibility for others’ past actions due to their race, sex, or national origin,” and restricting teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity. (One of these laws prevents teachers from asking a student’s pronoun or name, from providing their own pronouns or names if they do not correspond to the teacher’s sex assigned at birth).

At the same time, in 2025–2026, many school districts experienced severe budget cuts, as the state’s Florida Empowerment Scholarships and Florida Tax Credit Scholarships expanded, resulting in over 51% of students leaving their neighborhood schools for charters, magnets, private, and home schools (Solochek, 2025). This results in the loss of over $4 billion to state school districts (Dollard and McKillip, 2025). This results in larger class sizes in public schools, the loss of critical programs, reduced teacher planning periods, and a lack of funds for needed teaching supplies. The combination of loss of autonomy, a constant flow of unprepared colleagues, and a continued negative shift in teaching conditions makes the work of Florida’s teachers, including science teachers, particularly difficult. The results of these cuts are seen in student outcomes, as students’ SAT scores have dropped in recent years, making Florida the 47th in SAT scores for the nation, with stark differences between student outcomes in urban and impoverished rural districts (FEA staff, 2024b).

How would you describe the current climate change and evolution education situation in your state?

In terms of the teaching of climate change and evolution, Florida’s educational context is shaped by its standards, state law, and local influences. The standards have not been revised since 2008 (although that process is underway currently). In terms of climate change, the standards describe that high school students should be able to “Identify, analyze, and relate the internal (Earth system) and external (astronomical) conditions that contribute to global climate change,” but it stops short of delving into the human-caused elements of climate change. (There are no standards for climate change for elementary and middle school students.) However, the governor recently signed a bill earlier this month, deleting the words “climate change” from state statutes and deprioritizing certain climate solutions in policy decision-making. Publishers, seeking to be adopted by the state, have removed references to climate change and associated concepts at the same time that climate denial videos have been approved by the state for classroom use. In terms of evolution, Florida’s standards are much more extensive, describing evolution as the organizing principle of life science supported by multiple forms of evidence, and touching upon evidence, mechanisms, origin of life, and even human evolution.

That said, recent “curriculum transparency” legislation requires school districts to make “instructional materials” (including library and classroom books and any instructional materials a teacher intends to use) available to parents for review. Any member of the public can file a complaint objecting to materials (although later legislation put a limit on the number of challenges nonparents can make). In terms of science, while this legislation has become newsworthy because of the empty library shelves it left in its immediate wake, it has become important because of its requirement of district review of all instructional materials. Districts have responded to this bill in a wide variety of ways, some requiring that all instructional materials teachers use to be reviewed by district personnel long before their usage — a process that pushes teachers to only use those materials already adopted by the district, again limiting teachers’ autonomy and ability to make the curriculum relevant to the students they serve.

Note that much of what has been discussed above involves issues with broader impact than just science education in Florida. That said, these issues serve to draw attention away from science education in general and more specifically away from evolution and climate change education.

What does this look like on the ground — in classrooms and at the district and state levels?

The evolution question has always been one of interest, particularly to those outside the state. Teachers report that they can easily address evolution in mechanistic terms (micro vantage points) that lead to changes in species (biological change over time). Likewise, they can approach climate change from the perspective of physical science, linking it to environmental changes over time, but without directly linking it to anthropogenic causes. While many secondary teachers continue to teach in ways that address central science concepts, elementary teachers seem to be more constrained. Many districts require reviews of all their curricular materials long before they are to be used — and this puts science teachers at a serious disadvantage in adapting formal curricular material in ways that are meaningful for students. The suite of recent legislation and the fear of legal action that they carry with them can influence local conditions (in the district and schools) and have serious consequences for the work of teachers. Thus, what is possible in some districts or schools is not possible for others.

What is the mood among your colleagues and science teachers you work with?

Outside pressure on the content of what science teachers will teach is not the central concern for most secondary teachers (as secondary teachers have always found ways to address what they deem to be important even in the face of lackluster state standards). Rather, it is the larger issues related to the work of teaching that make the work so difficult. These include disproportionate attention to political interpretation of care for individual students (e.g., pronouns, clubs attending to aspects of kids’ identity), lack of resources/classroom space/desks/support for immigrant students, loss of planning time — even in the face of terrific emphasis on testing and the classroom time that it robs, the need to mask/hide/minimize the emotional component of teaching and learning, and the demands of supporting novice/ill-prepared colleagues. These are the contextual constraints that most vex the work of all teachers in Florida — and this is true for science teachers. All that said, most of the science teachers that we work with are dedicated professionals who remain devoted to the learning of their students.

What do you see as the most profound challenges — and opportunities — related to your work?

CHALLENGES:

• Finding the resources necessary for effective teaching (e.g., adequate planning/collaboration time, approved but effective curriculum, resources effective for emergent bilingual students, strategies and support for students with special needs, and approved assessments that foster meaningful learning).
• Navigating the micro-political climates in schools and districts so that teachers can effectively teach science in ways meaningful to students.
• Dealing with the increasing social/emotional issues of students in the classroom, some resulting from the social isolation of students during the pandemic as these students work their way through the system (those who first entered their academic years during the pandemic are now entering the fifth or sixth grade).
• Fostering environments to allow teaching novices to gain skill and comfort in their work,allowing for the creation of a community of science teachers in schools and districts.
• Figuring out how to address the newly arising issues of artificial intelligence in education, such that it is a tool for learning and not a crutch for students that destroys critical thinking.

OPPORTUNITIES:

• Building on what was learned about the education and socialization of students during the pandemic, we can improve the educational system and more effectively teach all students.
• Taking advantage of the promise of a new set of state standards we will see a window of receptivity to new educational resources. This may create an opportunity to share curriculum and pedagogy that have been found to be effective in supporting students’ science learning.

For those of us who see an imperative in providing an accurate science education to our students, what do you see as the path forward?

A path forward would have multiple components, working with state policymakers, teachers, and STEM professionals. First, it is necessary to produce research that speaks to the need for resources that are essential to effective teaching, and share that research with state policy makers, science specialists, and district leaders to develop norms that are supportive of high quality, effective teaching. In tandem, we need to provide teachers with high-quality professional development around curriculum and pedagogy that is grounded in research, and help build a community to offer support for their classroom efforts. Finally, we need to work with STEM professionals to determine essential proficiencies that graduates need would be useful in informing both curriculum and teacher professional development.

References

Dollard, N. and McKillip, M. January 14, 2024). Florida continues to drain much-needed funds away from public schools to private and home-school students. Florida Policy Institute. https://www.floridapolicy.org/posts/florida-continues-to-drain-much-needed-funds-away-from- public-schools-to-private-and-home-school-students

FEA staff. 2025. Teacher and staff shortages persist and tell a deeper story about problematic policies. January 15, 2025. Florida Education Association. https://feaweb.org/release/ teacher-and-staff-shortages-persist

FEA staff. 2024a. Florida teacher pay sinks in national rankings. April 20, 2024. Florida Education Association. https://feaweb.org/release/florida-teacher-pay-sinks-in-national-rankings/

FEA staff. December 6, 2024. 2024b. SAT scores and the impact of underfunding public education. Florida Education Association. https://feaweb.org/eadvocate/ sat-scores-and-the-impact-of-underfunding-public-education/

Learning Policy Institute. 2024. The state of the teacher workforce: A state-by-state analysis of the factors influencing teacher shortages, supply, demand, and equity [Interactive map]. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/state-of-teacher-workforce-interactive

Solochek, J. August 5, 2025. How are vouchers affecting Florida Education? Schools assess the impact. Tampa Bay Times. https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2025/08/05/how-are-vouchers-affecting-florida-education-schools-assess-impact/

Staff. March 27, 2023.. Governor Ron DeSantis signs historic legislation to expand school choice options to all Florida students. Press release, https://www.flgov.com/eog/news/press/2023/governor-ron-desantis-signs-historic-legislation-expand-school-choice-options-all