“How Not to Lay Off Teachers” in today’s Wall Street Journal (link) rather weakly repeats something that everyone who studies the education mess knows. It’s worth your time if you have any doubts that seniority is not the right way to determine who should be paid public money to teach in public schools. Of course just because everyone knows something doesn’t mean much.
The steep deficits that states now face mean that teacher layoffs this year are unavoidable. Parents understandably want the best teachers spared. Yet in 14 states it is illegal for schools to consider anything other than a teacher’s length of service when making layoff decisions.
It gets worse. “Many people don’t realize that teachers are not evenly distributed nationwide,” says Tim Daly of the New Teacher Project, which has released a new report on the nationwide impact on quality-blind layoffs. “Fourteen states have these rules but about 40% of all teachers work in those states, and they’re the states with the biggest budget deficits.” In addition to New York, the list includes California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin.