This is Southwest Florida InFocus.

Coming up, the struggle to make ends meet in the Sunshine State, even as minimum wage increases.

Why hundreds of thousands of Floridians are finding it difficult to get by.

Florida has seen a surge in charter schools in recent years.

How the public school system is feeling the impact, as some families choose alternative education options and finding faith during recovery.

A look at how one local rehab program uses spirituality to help people with addiction get back on track.

Hello, I'm Sandra Victorova.

Thank you for joining us.

Well, tens of thousands of Southwest Floridians are struggling to cover the basic necessities in Florida.

Folks like Mary Goodwin in north Fort Myers.

She says more than half of her Social Security check goes to pay her mortgage.

She depends on food donations from the Suncoast Community Center every week.

It's critical.

I depend on everything that I get.

My help and this help down here.

If we didn't have this help here, I don't know what I would do.

I really wouldn't.

She's like so many, struggling with the higher cost of living, especially low income workers.

More than 1.2 million Floridians earn less than $15 an hour, an amount that the Florida Policy Institute says is not a living wage for single people.

The nonprofit studies how much people need to earn to meet basic needs.

Their research says an average living wage statewide for an adult without kids is $18.66 an hour.

An adult with one child $27.82.

With more on this issue, we're joined by Doctor Alexis Tsoukalas a senior policy analyst with the Florida Policy Institute, a nonprofit which focuses on how state policy impacts Floridians.

Doctor Tsoukalas, welcome.

Thank you for having me.

So you said nowhere in the state of Florida is our current minimum wage, $14 an hour, a living wage for a single full time worker without kids.

So tell us, what does the data say?

What is a living wage in Florida?

Yeah.

So just briefly to step back and talk about what we mean when we say living wage.

Obviously there's specific data points that went into that, including childcare, housing and food.

But generally a living wage is meant to be, you know, more than a bare subsistence wage.

It's it doesn't include emergency funds or savings, but includes enough that you're not going to be housing or food insecure.

And for the most part, so what a living wage is obviously depends on where you live and the cost of living.

Sure.

I'll say nationwide, advocates have pushed for a $17 minimum wage as a living wage standard.

But when you look at Southwest Florida in particular, by looking at, like Lee County, for example, $14 an hour is, six over $6 an hour less than what, a minimum, of living wages for a single worker so that we hit that.

So, for example, in Lee County, if you are a single worker working full time, you don't have children and you're earning the minimum wage, really, you need to be earning at least $20.70 an hour to be anywhere near a living wage.

And that's obviously not happening for many people.

In Collier, that's $18.28 an hour or so, a little less.

But still, you can see that significant hourly gap between what a living wage is and, the minimum wage.

And, you know, that's just someone who's single and doesn't have children.

Now imagine if you do have one child, two child, two children, three children.

It's going to get, of course, much more expensive for you.

How many people in our area are not making a living wage?

Well, in Florida in general, so there's at least 1.2 million people who are making less than a $15 minimum wage, which we know is still not a living wage in many places.

And as far as who was going to benefit most directly from this $14 above, we know in Florida that over 800,000 people.

That's a significant number.

Now, when you look at Southwest Florida in particular, Lee, Collier, Collier and Charlotte counties for example, for most of them, at least 10% of their workforce was making less than $14 an hour before it went up September 30th.

So, you know, it's a significant number of people.

Why should people care about this issue?

If somebody is earning a lot more than minimum wage and they're doing fine, it's a really any impact to those who are not struggling.

It's a great question.

I will try to keep it short.

There are huge societal implications.

When you start to pay people better, they're able to spend more.

They have more money in their pockets, and that's spending power that's going back into the economy.

They're less likely to be reliant on, the social safety net.

Things like snap and TANF for long and extended periods of time.

They're more likely to be able to afford health care.

And ultimately, when people cannot afford basic living standards, it might not show up right away.

But it has this ripple effect and it starts to depress communities and depress the state economy.

The other thing is that, I don't when you actually raise the minimum wage of your workforce, what often happens is employers then give their money to senior workers or those who have higher pay, a little bit of a bump because they don't want it to be where, oh, I'm, you know, two years ahead of you or I've been in this job longer, and now I'm making the same as this person making minimum wage.

So there's usually a bump that happens as well.

And there is a benefit directly for those who are not earning the minimum wage to doctors who Florida has the highest minimum wage in the South.

But you would say that really doesn't solve resolve the issue, right?

Because it's easy to look at a number objectively and say, oh, wow, $15, you know, which is where we'll be next year.

That's a lot.

But that's why we did this dashboard to show you when you're actually comparing to how high the cost of living has gotten everywhere, especially in Florida.

It really is not a significant number.

And the other thing I would like to point out is the reason that Florida has this higher minimum wage is because of voters themselves.

It's because of the public themselves.

Twice now, minimum wage has been put on our ballot.

And voters, more than 60% of them said every time, you know, this is across party lines, gender, ethnicity.

We want to get paid more.

So this is definitely something the public wants.

And, you know, the state and its leaders need to make sure that they don't undercut that and bolster it with other policies to help people afford.

You know, basic, basic way of life.

Doctor Alexis Tsoukalos, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Student scores are on the rise on Florida benchmark exams, but results are not as encouraging on some national tests.

Coming up, a look at student performance on key exams and how public schools are seeing dollars drain as the school voucher program expands.

The Florida Department of Education touted an overall improvement in the flawed assessment of student thinking, or Fast, a monitoring system that replaced the Florida Standards Assessment, or FSA.

The state system showed progress in nearly every grade level, with notable gains in math and reading proficiency.

In part two of our discussion with Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar, we break down the difference in state and national testing as well as the impact.

Charter schools and school vouchers are having on the public schools.

Florida students doing better on their state benchmark tests.

But I read that you personally say that you still have concerns because you say students are not Florida.

Students are not doing better on national tests.

Explain.

Yeah.

So we have a couple of measures, right.

And many people are aware of the SAT and Act.

Florida students are doing worse now than they were 15, 20 years ago.

And second of all, there's the National Assessment of Educational Progress known as the Nape scores.

Those are the nation.

That's the nation's report card.

And that compares us to states and around the world, quite honestly.

And Florida is not doing as well as we were in those situations as well.

And here's what we know about the struggle we have in Florida.

One, our public schools are underfunded.

We're 43rd in the nation in funding for our public schools to our teachers and staff are underpaid.

We're 50th in the nation out of 50 states in Washington, D.C., for our pay for average pay for teachers, which has led to a massive teacher and staff shortage.

So that's clearly having an impact.

And then Florida's public schools are overburdened.

We have seen an almost doubling in the number of pages of educational law in the state of Florida over the last 20 years.

It's not helping our public schools.

It's making it harder for them.

So since you brought up this push up on vouchers, let's talk about that.

The state is obviously push to expand vouchers, which allows families to use state dollars to go to private school.

What has been the impact, the tangible impact to schools?

Well, we saw an extreme expansion of vouchers, a couple of years ago with universal vouchers coming into Florida.

And I want to be clear on this.

This is money.

That is taxpayer money that is going to very often corporate run for profit companies who are running these private schools without any accountability.

There are 1330 pages of law that Florida's public schools must follow.

There are less than 20 that the voucher program must follow.

That's a huge discrepancy.

And what are we seeing with some of that?

We see private schools that close all of a sudden leaving parents in a lurch.

We see private schools denying kids entry into their schools.

They get to select.

It's not that parents have choice, it's that the private schools have choice.

And then those vouchers are also used for homeschooling.

And in some cases, we've seen homeschooling examples where where parents are billing the state to take their kids to Disneyworld for a week, calling it an educational expense.

And the private, the voucher company that oversees these vouchers, which again, is more driven by profits than anything else, isn't putting any regulations in place to make sure that there's actually learning going on there.

Look, if it's so important that our public schools meet certain standards because we care about the education of students, then why doesn't it apply to those who take vouchers, whether it's private schools or homeschooling?

What has been the financial impact to schools?

So public schools in the state of Florida are losing $4 billion a year.

$4 billion a year is coming out of the public school budget to fund vouchers.

And what does that mean?

85% of those dollars two years ago went to kids already enrolled in private schools or in homeschool situations, which means less resources for our public schools, which is why across the state, districts are talking about closing schools and other cuts to their budgets, reducing programs.

Our our schools are losing out.

Our public schools are losing out.

Our students are losing.

You know, some might argue, though, you know, those students are going to private schools.

So that those are fewer students that those particular schools have to educate.

Doesn't it sort of all work out in the end?

Not when we're talking about kids who never have been enrolled in the public schools, which is what we're seeing right now.

And that's putting a huge strain on the system.

Again, we're 43rd in the nation in funding for our schools, and we're watching the dollars in our public schools go down.

We still have over 70% of students in Florida, in Florida, going to our public schools.

So you mean you're talking about students who are already in private schools just using that money to.

That's right.

Making taking that money from the public schools, draining those dollars out, it is truly a drain and a strain on Florida's public schools.

Mr.

smart, let's talk about charter schools.

When children are sent to charter schools, you would argue that that is a huge problem for for public schools as well, even though my understanding is these charter schools do have to report to the local district.

So again, charter schools have requirements in Florida.

They have about 68 pages of law getting public schools have 1330 pages of law.

Here's what we know about charter schools.

We've seen experiments.

Charter schools tend to open in communities where, there is more fluency in that community.

They tend not to take students who are have struggles, whether they're students with disabilities, whether they're students who live in poverty.

We saw an experiment.

We've seen a few experiments with charter schools in Florida.

Jefferson County, just outside of Tallahassee, was converted to all charter schools.

And after five years, the charter school company walked away.

Said that was hard to teach poor kids.

And those schools were turned back over to the public schools and are doing better under the public schools than they did under charter school control.

Here's the other issue we see in charter schools.

There's a new law that right now that allows to allows charter schools, which are run by for profit companies, to come in and take over part of a public school.

We already have a company that has submitted over 100 applications of their intent to take over parts of our public school, the parts they take over, the maintenance of those facilities, the cleaning of those facilities, the access to the common areas, the cafeteria, the gymnasiums, the media centers, the offices.

All of that comes at the expense of the public school, not the charter school.

So again, this is another drain.

This is a hostile takeover of public schools.

And it's because charter schools have seen their enrollment declining with the advent of vouchers, because so many charter schools said that they were a private school funded with public money.

And now that vouchers exist everywhere, charter schools are hurting.

What we should take away from all of this, whether it's vouchers, whether it's charters, even in some cases homeschooling, this is more about dollars and cents and less about the education of our students.

Andrew Spar, thank you very much.

We appreciate your time.

Thank you.

And for our complete interview with Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar, make sure to go to the Or download the new app.

Students in Glades County are riding in style thanks to a new fleet of electric busses.

The county made the change in part to reduce reliance on diesel, but more important was making sure students had adequate air conditioning.

Heading to school WGCU's Mike Braun reports.

Until the 20 2324 school year, Glades County School busses were entirely diesel and the fleet was aging.

The school had chosen to invest money in teacher salaries, infrastructure, and we let the busses get a little old.

But to financially come up with enough money to replace the busses with any kind of a frequency was going to be prohibitive.

That's Daniel Thomas from Glades County Schools.

He lauded former school officials for getting the ball rolling and replacing those aging rides with a new fleet of air conditioned electric busses.

The next thing you know, here we are, and it's a wonderful solution.

These busses are incredible.

The drivers love them.

They're easier to drive.

They're more comfortable.

Kids love them.

A deal involving a grant in the Highlands Electric Fleet Company turned into 13 brand new air conditioned EV busses.

Included were all the infrastructure and maintenance, at a cost roughly equivalent to replacing one bus a year.

And what do the riders think?

Here's 11 year old Lexi Wiggins.

For there was no way she was going to be sweating a lot and everything.

12 year old Brianna Cooper contrasted last year's ride and now it was very noisy.

And just like, not that great of a ride, it just makes the ride like more peaceful.

Thomas said initial community concern about the electric busses due to media reports about fires and such, has all but been settled.

We have won the community over.

Kids love them.

The air conditioning alone is worth it for WGCU news This is Mike Braun.

Electric busses are just part of the school resurgence in Glades.

Despite being one of the poorest counties in the state, the school district did the seemingly impossible and received an A-grade from the Department of Education.

The first in many years WGCUs Eileen Kelly reports.

I went double check that answer.

And I think part of being, a successful, district is you have to know where you are and be really truthful about what that data is saying.

And the data said Glades County was a failing school system.

It has been this way for many, many years, but no longer.

Doctor Alice Barfield grew up in rural Glades County and is a graduate of Moore Haven High School.

She went into teaching and became an administrator in neighboring Lee County, but Barfield felt a calling to come back home.

Back to Glades County, a school district ranked 64th out of 67 Florida counties in academic achievement.

Voters elected Barfield to write this failing school system.

The position as superintendent of Schools in Glades County was a cut in pay for Barfield.

My damn good job.

Five years later, Glades County was ranked as a grade A school.

You just have to take it for what it is.

And so when we looked at the data, we needed to come up with a way to to improve.

I knew that it was not going to happen overnight, because when you are changing that type of doing transformation in schools, it takes many cycles to get on the right track and so we did it in very small pieces.

Those pieces weren't always popular.

For instance, Barfield said the district had employed too many uncertified teachers.

We put a emphasis on making sure that we were putting teachers that were certified into those classrooms, and so we started to see, that the first year that we got our scores back, we went up.

In 2020, the school district was ranked D under Barfield.

The following year, it came up to a C. We all considered that a win because it was improvement.

Then we knew we had to focus more on things that would get our students to that next level.

Glades is a fiscally restrained county.

The per capita income is $32,000 and close to one of every four children.

Those under the age of 18 lives in poverty.

Our district has very little budget when it comes to, education.

We're very blessed to have what we have.

But one thing that we have that money can't buy is we have a lot of people that really always want to do what's best for students.

So the school district partnered with Florida Southwestern College in Fort Myers to offer college level classes to the students in their high school.

The college classes are of no charge, and this includes textbooks.

The program is so popular that one third of the high school's senior class are not only graduating, but they have earned an associate's degree without stepping foot on a college campus.

It's not just changing those students laughs.

It's changing our community.

Because if you look at the statistics in Florida, you see that, you know, Glades County has one of the highest poverty ratings.

We have one of the highest, unemployment ratings.

Well, our school district is is in charge of making sure that that stops.

Barfield says she refuses to accept that poverty is synonymous with a poor school performance, that a rating is proof of that.

This is the first time the school district has received an A in 14 years.

This year, Glades was among 30 school districts to receive an A rating.

Our community needed this.

They needed some some really positive good news.

After the break, helping those in need find redemption.

The program that provides structure and faith for recovering addicts to help turn their lives around.

No cell phones, no computers and no smoking.

Those are some of the sacrifices people are making for a second chance at a new beginning.

At Teen challenge Fort Myers, men and women who are struggling with addiction can spend a year or more rebuilding their lives from the ground up.

One of their biggest recovery tools is faith WGCUs culture and connections.

Reporter Elizabeth Andarge has that story.

We're here at Teen Challenge Southwest Florida.

It's a place where people get a chance to start over.

And today we get a glimpse into those journeys.

There are no signs outside the men and women's campus in Pine Manor.

Teen challenge, a faith based recovery program, keeps a low profile.

But inside, over 40 men and women are working through intensive rehabilitation.

The national program began in the 1950s when founder David Wilkerson preached to gang members and addicts in New York.

Today, there are centers nationwide, including this one in Fort Myers for adults 18 and up.

34 year old Carlos Cesar Cruz is a veteran of two Afghanistan tours.

I smoked marijuana daily, medications, like prescription medications.

I was also on psych meds due to a lot of PTSD that I suffered from.

And, I was a very heavy cocaine user.

And the overdoses because I thought I bought a bag of cocaine and it'd be in a bag of fentanyl.

He's now the designated chef, cooking three meals a day for over 30 men.

It's liberating and much needed distraction, being free from the bonds of addiction.

Being free from.

Feeling like a failure all the time.

And also, you know, being away from my son.

Not being able to see him.

I haven't seen him since September, so that's been really hard.

The program requires a minimum one year stay with strict rules.

No smoking, no outside jobs, no personal vehicles.

Students must live and work together at Teen Challenge thrift stores.

They study the Bible and slowly earn privileges like family visits.

A privilege Cruz is anxious for when thinking of his son.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I wasn't the father that you needed in the early part of your life.

And, sorry, the onions.

I'm going to make a promise to him that I won't let go of failing, that, I'm going to do everything I can to be.

The father that I never had and the father that God is to me.

David Hunter battled alcohol for years.

I was in and out of jail.

I was homeless.

I was in unhealthy relationships.

And I knew something had to change, but I didn't know how.

I actually went to the Salvation Army adult Rehabilitation Center in 2012, and I had a short time of sobriety.

I met my wife, Melissa, and we started dating.

We got married.

She was in recovery.

We're going to church together.

So everything seemed to be perfect.

They even had a son, Isaiah.

But there was still some deep rooted issues.

So I ended up relapsing during our relationship.

And I came home one day and the locks were changed.

And that's when my rock bottom truly began.

After Melissa filed for divorce, David entered Teen Challenge.

He completed the program saving their marriage.

Now they have three children and Melissa runs the Teen Challenge Women's Campus.

So when David was in the program, we called it, Daddy's Jesus School.

I mean, we're over the lake and it is it is a Jesus school.

It is curriculum to grow and and to know of not only your knowledge of God, but also to grow as a woman or man of God.

Most of the staff are program graduates.

David Hunter now runs the men's program.

He understands firsthand what recovery has cost them and what it's given them.

I can attest the teen challenge was one of the most difficult things I've ever done.

And it was one of the most painful things I've ever done.

But I wouldn't change it for the world.

For WGCU news, I'm Elizabeth Andarge.

Coming up next week, a unique approach to tackling Florida's invasive species.

How one group is transforming the Burmese python into high fashion.

Well, we thank you so much for joining us today.

Make sure to download the WGCU app or visit WGCU.org where you can find all of our stories.

Plus extended interviews.

Have a great weekend and we hope you will join us again next week for Southwest Florida in focus.