And the surveys say...

Duval County ranks second when it comes to the most dissatisfied teachers in the state, according to Glassdoor.com, where employees rate their employers on five metrics: Culture and Values, Work/Life Balance, Senior Management, Compensation/Benefits and Career Opportunities. They can also recommend the employer to a friend (or not) and choose an outlook of positive, neutral or negative.

I searched all 67 counties in FL. A few were not on Glassdoor and I ignored many smaller counties because there were fewer than 10 ratings, a sampling not representative enough; most got high marks though. The five metrics are rated on a scale of 1 - 5. Only three counties have an overall score of less than three: Clay (2.9), Duval (2.7) and Manatee (2.5).

Clay's superintendent is from Duval and Manatee's superintendent has recently been chosen to lead Duval. Did Duval just go from the frying pan to the fire?

Glassdoor.com data

The highest ratings on the spreadsheet are green, the lowest in red for the 32 counties shown. If you look at the top 16, you'll notice that 11 of them (69%) gave their highest ratings to Culture/Values. In the bottom 16, only three did (19%). School systems with an immoral culture and a lack of values shouldn't even exist, because we TEACH culture and values. We teach students to shove teachers aside, because the teacher should not have stood in your way. We teach students that they are on the same level as teachers by having administrators conduct teacher-student mediation. No wonder the crime rate is so high in Duval.

Duval's teachers rated Senior Management the lowest and it will probably not surprise anyone who teaches here. But Duval's teachers are only the second most miserable in the state. The top spot belongs to Manatee, where our new superintendent had the helm for the past four years. Duval and Manatee are the only counties with NO RATINGS OF THREE OR ABOVE ON ANY OF THE FIVE METRICS. Manatee County's Senior Management rating of 1.8 is the lowest rating I found anywhere, the ONLY rating less than two. If you read the reviews, you'll see that nepotism and cronyism were rampant.

Will DAU - I mean, DTU - continue to be "the most accommodating union in the country?" If they continue to represent administrators and not teachers, expect the worst going forward. They are no less abusive of teachers than the administrators. I can't tell you how many times I have suggested to a teacher with a complaint that he or she call the union. The response is ALWAYS the same: "I don't want to bother them." My response is uniform too: "They are not a charity. You pay them $60/month to help you when you need it." But, invariably, they don't call, so I assume they treat all of their members with contempt, and not just me. Last week, after our school-based rep gave the usual pitch to new teachers, our principal pitched it as well, referring to DAU - I mean, DTU - as "helpful." That's true; they do help administrators. But what will they do for teachers? Because, if the union is not responsible for these rankings, who is?