Metro

Teacher-seniority rule faces legal hurdle

New York’s “last in, first out” law, which requires that teachers be fired based on seniority rather than merit during a budget crisis, could be struck down as illegal, legal experts told The Post.

“You don’t have to be a great constitutional scholar to figure this out,” said Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Southern California branch.

The reason is simple, Rosenbaum said. LIFO layoffs disproportionately hit the neediest students, most of whom attend struggling, difficult-to-staff schools with the highest percentage of junior teachers. These schools suffer the greatest loss of instructors under a strict seniority-based layoff policy because they have the most new hires and fewest veteran teachers.

“You can’t learn if you have a revolving door of teachers. It’s a disgrace,” Rosenbaum said.

But the ACLU did something about it — at least in California. The group sued the state when LIFO-based layoffs decimated dozens of struggling schools in the LA school district — arguing it violated students’ “equal opportunity” to be educated.

And last month, plaintiffs won a court settlement that exempts 45 of LA’s most troubled schools from the LIFO law. The California teachers union is appealing the ruling.