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Our latest San Diego Explained with NBC San Diego tackles the issue of “last hired, first fired” teacher layoffs. The newest teachers are the first to be laid off, which means schools with lots of new teachers get hit harder by layoffs:
View more videos at: http://www.nbcsandiego.com.
While there are obvious drawbacks to laying off the newest teachers, the hard part is coming up with a good alternative. Laying teachers off is pretty much always lousy. But could it be any less lousy? Here are some interesting links from around the web. Please post more links and thoughts in the comments!
• A new bill would allow California schools to consider teacher performance, instead of just seniority, the Orange County Register reports. But performance could be a problem too: “Officials with the California Teacher’s Union have said teacher performance measures are too inconsistent and unproven to solely base layoffs on.”
• Education Trust West, a nonprofit that advocates to close the achievement gap, recently argued against using seniority as the sole or chief basis for layoffs. Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein has an interesting column on the same side.
• Last-in-first-out has been an explosive issue in New York. GothamSchools is a fabulous resource to track what’s happening there and how their laws might change. One of their most interesting posts is about a group of less experienced teachers who back the current rules.
Please contact Emily Alpert directly at emily.alpert@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5665 and follow her on Twitter: twitter.com/emilyschoolsyou.