Education advocates have questionned the policy, but this year, the issue has taken center stage. On Sunday, the Courant ran an op-ed, Teacher Layoffs Schools Should Have The Power To Retain Their Best Teachers
A "last in, first out" policy is a disservice to the state's children as well as an affront to common sense. Most good organizations, when faced with downsizing, try to keep their best people, regardless of how long they've been on the job. Schools should be allowed to keep their best teachers.
The Courant also criticizes the practice of tenure which it says "makes it nearly impossible to fire a poor teacher, or requires a good young teacher to be laid off ahead of a longtime seat-warmer, it's not working for the best interest of children or the interests of the state."
In lieu of a statewide evaluation system that is expected in 2013, the editorial urges the General Assembly to "do what Rhode Island did last year and the New York state Senate did last week, and that is to pass legislation allowing school districts to consider factors other than seniority when making layoff decisions."
Gov. Dannel Malloy raised the issue in his budget address, proposing a reform of teacher tenure rules "to give local school districts the flexibility they need to retain new, talented teachers."
Opponents of such measures argue that removing seniority would put senior teachers at risk during budget crunches. More money could be saved by firing an "expensive" veteran teacher vs a "cheaper" first or second year teacher.
Personally, I tend to prefer older teachers for my elementary school aged children. There's something about all that experience that is reassuring. Teaching is a skill that takes practice and time to hone, right? My sister did Teach for America in Oakland, CA and she says that she still feels badly about her first year of teaching. In spite of all her good intentions, her summer training did not prepare her for the rigors of the classroom. Most of her batchmates left teaching after two years. She ended up teaching for 10 years and getting a Master's in Education. (She now writes science curriculum).
Fortunately, Norwalk probably won't lose lots of teachers this year so this issue may not be as urgent as in other parts of the state. Seniority does, however, impact aides, administrators and specialists. What do you think of seniority rules?
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seniority when making layoff decisions.
ReplyDeleteThe Courant article 'New Haven, in a groundbreaking collaboration between the school board and the teachers union, has developed a teacher performance assessment system that uses student achievement as its primary criterion. Teacher ratings under this system will be used to guide staffing decisions. So it can be done. With a nudge from the legislature, the rest of the state can get on board.' It would be nice to see Norwalk take such a balanced approach too.
Where else in the workplace does seniority determine layoffs? It is ridiculous. Talent and effort should always be rewarded, our children deserve the best. My children have had experienced teachers who have taught for 20 years who are incredible. They have also had teachers who have taught for 20 years who are burned out, and have no right teaching children. The same goes for new teachers. My sons teacher has been teaching for just three years, and the kids in his class are incredibly lucky to have her, she gives them her all and it shows.
ReplyDeleteIn total agreement with poster 7:32
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree with you 7:32. Use common sense, not senority!
ReplyDeleteOff Topic but important BREAKING News;
ReplyDeleteThe Future of Education.
Gates and Khan have taken it to scale, globally.
Gates is challenging every district to join in. It works and its FREE.
Norwalk, time to get radical. Lets take on Gates challenge.
http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html?awesm=on.ted.com_8z4Y&utm_campaign=salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education&utm_content=ted.com-talkpage&utm_medium=on.ted.com-twitter&utm_source=direct-on.ted.com
What are we waiting for?????
http://www.khanacademy.org/
Totally agree with 7:32. Our kids deserve the best and they should keep the best!
ReplyDeleteI don't think many educators get the fact that the majority of businesses today do not employ the "last in, first out" policy. Businesses should be able to retain their best talent, while getting rid of unproductive employees. This is why performance reviews and detailed documentation are so critical from a human resources perspective. In my twenty five years of corporate experience it came down to mainly numbers in terms of meeting my business goals as well as working as a team player. I found that most of my former employers were very cautious of blatantly laying off employees without solid performance reasons due to the possibility of lawsuits. While no one wants to invest the time or money to resort to the legal system for recourse, the fact is these laws are in place for our protection and employers keep this in mind when evaluating possible candidates for layoffs. Look I don't want to see any teachers laid off in our district, but if it happens, I want to know that the best have been retained. The education industry needs to get with the rest of the working world and justify their employment based on their performance rather than some unrealistic union contract.
ReplyDelete4:52 makes an excellent point. If seniority in schools wasn't used the way it is now, as a guarantee for life employment regardless of performance, districts would still be very careful of laying off a senior teacher just because that teacher is highly paid. Doing so would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. The teacher would have to have a documented record of poor or middling performance too.
ReplyDelete4:52, maybe educators should get an expense account too, maybe tuition reinbursement as well. Then we can be like a business since that is what you business people seem to want.
ReplyDeleteha! Unfortunately you can'r treat it like a business exactly, because it is different. Even the best teachers can only do so much. We always hear about test scores but does everyone realize that students who are new to the country and just learning English take the tests also. Special Education students also take them. While all of these students are being taught and are learning, they are held to the same standard which is just not realistic in every case. A teacher should be considered not effective if those students' scores are below grade level? Face it, whether anyone wantd to hear it or not, there are students who just may never catch up to grade level due to disabilities.Students have so many factors outside of school that can impact their performance in school, both positively and negatively. What about the less effective teacher who has "good" students and supportive parents, that class will probaly do well but not all because of the teacher. Deciding which teachers are effective and which are not is a very complicated process and needs to be done by competent administrators, which is where we need to start if we want to see any reform.
ReplyDeleteHey, 5:11, where have you been, all those expense accounts and other perks have been severely cut!! And I get your point 5:32 on the complexity of evaluating teacher effectiveness. Additionally, I do not want to see the teacher evaluations based on student performance as I agree that there are so many factors involved that a teacher has no control over. But there are numerous other criteria that an employee's performance can be based on. The principals in each school know their exactly who their top, reliable performers are and they should never have to lose them under any circumstances.
ReplyDelete6:23, so you are saying the decision rests with the building principal. Are you kidding? I agree with the previous poster. First get building principals who are competent at recognizing a good teacher.....not just a nice teacher who causes no problems for the principal....a really good teacher. What does a really good teacher look like? You may be surprised, because the best teachers don't necessarily win the 'most liked' awards.
ReplyDeleteWell 8:47 the principal contract gives them seniority and protects them from dismissal and the teacher contract gives them seniority and protects them from dismissal. The teachers and the principals don't seem to trust each other and it seems like no teacher or principl is ever dismissed unless they do something illegal. So what are the kids here, chopped liver?
ReplyDelete9:46, I think you need to re-read my comment. All I am saying is that you need competent principals first. To have that, you need competent people in central office evaluating these principals. For example,it would help if the elementary director had experience in an elementary school as a principal or even as a teacher. If you don't want your child to be chopped liver, chop central office positions that don't make sense. Maybe Susan Marks needs to evaluate elementary principals next year. Then we might see the changes start to occur down the line.
ReplyDelete9:46, there have been plenty of teachers who have been let go, without doing something illegal. Unless you work in the school where it happened you wouldnt hear about it. The news only reports the ones that did something illegal. I have been with the district 20 years and have been in a couple of different schools, and I have seen it happen. Some were deserved while others were innocent victims of building administrators with their own agenda, which wasn't about the students. I have never seen an administrator let go for any reason.
ReplyDelete4:02, you just can't stop yourself, can you? No matter what the thread, you bring it back to this. It is the same one or two people bringing up the same tired attack. Moina, here's another one that has to be taken down.
ReplyDelete12:51, you are wrong. This is about getting competent people. If you read the Sunday Times, Sunday Opinion column (Nicholos D. Kristof), the article suggests...among other things.... that good teachers, even kindergarten teachers, increase their students' earnings many years later. He speaks to increasing teachers' salaries to attract the best as well.
ReplyDeleteI am suggesting that the Times is on target, but that there is a first step to take. It is only possible to keep the best teachers if the principals really evaluate their teachers and eliminate the teachers who aren't making it. This isn't happening, obviously. Why? Because no one is really evaluating how the principals are doing at evaluating their teachers. I used one example. There are only two people at central office who evaluate principals as far as I know. The AS has classroom experience and principal experience so I couldn't use him as my example. Moina, I hope you see the evaluation of principals as a crucial first step in getting good teachers. I also hope the suggestion of having Susan Marks evaluate elementary principals the first year as an 'out of the box' suggestion that would really make a major difference. If not, well.....then you will delete my comments.
5:32, I've read about other school systems using student progress as part of the evaluation process. They don't measure whether the kids are at grade level, they measure the progress from one year to the next. Say you have a kid who starts second grade and still can't read. If the second grade teacher manages to pull that kid up to a first grade level, she's made genuine progress - even if the child still is not at grade level. That seems like a more realistic approach to me.
ReplyDelete10:27, that sounds like a good idea. As the devil's advocate though, I would wonder why this child hadn't made progress in the first place in grade one. Is there a genuine learning disability? I would hope that all avenues are thoroughly examined before stating that it is solely the teacher's fault. Human beings and the reasons they are predisposed to learn or not learn are indeed complicated.
ReplyDeleteI do hope someone figures this out...I agree that teachers should be held accountable.
Yes, I agree that teachers should be held accountable. It doesn't matter that they can say, "I taught it," rather, that "S/he learned it."
ReplyDeleteThat being said, there are lots of other variables. How prepared is the child? What is the home situation? If there is chaos, the child isn't going to learn. I also have to agree with 10:27: where did this particular teacher receive the child? If he came in a year behind, you cannot expect her to have him make 2 years' progress in ten months.
I recently spent an evening with 2 senior teachers bragging about how they had 20+ years in so no one could touch them. That's how far accountability goes with the seniority system. These rules as well as tenure must go for school reforms to take root. Radical changes are needed: higher pay for good teachers, and benefits that are closely in line with the real world out here. That way, teachers will get the respect and support needed, and our students will become more competitive with other nations.
ReplyDelete