State Senator Manny Diaz Jr, the Education Committee Chairman talked to 850WFTL about the issues facing teachers and students in Florida such as teacher pay, school safety, common core and testing.

He also said that he found the massive teacher rally at the beginning of the legislative session strange because both the Governor, Ron DeSantis and the lawmaker were proposing legislation to increase teacher salaries. He added that the teaches had a constitutional right to rally even though the timing was odd.

The teachers who joined the march were complaining that the proposed salary increases were for new hires and did not address the veteran educators.

Florida ranks #3 nationally in the overall category of education with a #1 ranking for higher education but ranks #27th for its K-12 schools.
Senator Diaz offered some ideas to help the undergraduate students to excel.

Listen to the full interview here: