How dare my fine state by calumnied?! At least one professional observer has questioned these rankings. I've got to say that I don't think we can possibly be worse than the deep south; How we beat Florida escapes me. In one of the counties in our district, the starting salary for teachers is $18,000 a year. I don't think our teachers are in as dire straits as that. I'll also plead testing bias against hispanics for our low test scores. (That sounds convincing, doesn't it?) Alright, I'm going back to work. Florida is either going to get stupider or smarter after the next election, and we have to work to make sure that it gets smarter.