Layoffs by seniority are not in the best interests of students
By Joe Williams
(From Albany Times Union, March 13th, 2011)
With Republican governors across the nation looking for new ways to demean and disparage public school teachers, it was refreshing to see Gov. Andrew Cuomo take a different tack. He proposed legislation to expedite an agreed-upon evaluation system that could be used as early as next school year to elevate the quality and professionalism of New York’s teaching work force.
While Cuomo’s bill will have a positive impact on the state’s education system years down the road, it doesn’t address a major threat to teacher quality this year: seniority-based layoffs.
It is time for Cuomo to lead on the issue by eliminating the state law that requires layoffs to be based on seniority rather than effectiveness.
New York faces a crippling budget deficit. While lawmakers are looking at every option to reduce the pain of budget cuts, there is no scenario that doesn’t include deep reductions to education funding.
As it now stands, New York City alone will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in state education funds. That will mean nearly 5,000 teacher layoffs.
Let’s be clear. Layoffs are a blunt budgetary tool and are not the best option for driving systemic education reform. But when layoffs must be made, as they must this year, we should ensure that they advance the interests of children, rather than adults.
Right now, that’s not the case.
New York, like many states, has a law that mandates how city government and other school districts conduct teacher layoffs: by seniority alone. If other districts have to lay off teachers, they, too, will have only one criterion by which to decide — seniority.
Known as “Last In, First Out,” this system removes the least-tenured or non-tenured teachers from the classroom first, while protecting the jobs of more tenured teachers. By law, teacher effectiveness and impact in the classroom cannot be considered. Time served on the job is the only factor used to distinguish which teachers stay and which go.
LIFO’s practical result is that many less-tenured, but high-performing teachers are forced out, while more senior, but less-effective teachers remain. This is not to say that senior teachers are less effective as a group, or that all less-tenured teachers are more effective. Rather, that there are highly effective teachers in their first year and in their 20th year, and that under LIFO districts would lose many high-quality, less- tenured teachers.
High poverty schools that have been persistently underserved by our education system bear the brunt of these layoffs because they typically have the least-tenured teachers. The education of our children suffers as a result.
A teacher’s seniority tells us nothing about how effective or ineffective that teacher is. So using seniority as the basis for layoffs ensures that we will fire great teachers while retaining poorly performing ones.
Which brings us back to the governor.
He correctly has identified evaluations as an important step to ensure that every classroom has a highly effective teacher.
Even if Cuomo’s legislation were adopted today, schools and districts wouldn’t see the results for two years. That will do nothing to address challenges facing districts like New York City today.
Cuomo has shown his willingness to lead on this issue. He must step-up once again and propose legislation that will end LIFO as a state-mandated practice.
Between the recently approved Senate bill, which would allow districts to use criteria other than seniority in layoff decisions, and the Cuomo bill, the information and tools exist to reach a result that protects the best teachers and does the most good for our kids.
It’s time to put the interests of students first and dump the practice of seniority-based layoffs.
Joe Williams is the executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, a national political action committee that advocates for systemic education reform.