FLIPPER: Education Secretary Arne Duncan speaks to an education conference in Denver yesterday. (Linda McConnell)
Education Secretary Arne Duncan yesterday gave thumbs-down to “last in, first out” laws that lay off teachers based on seniority rather than merit — a day after he edited out his opposition from a speech he delivered to a group of educators.
“If you have to make tough calls, you have to figure out for the most disadvantaged communities how you keep your best talent,” Duncan said in a conference call with reporters, when pressed on the issue.
He was referring to struggling schools that have the highest percentage of younger teachers, and whose students would be hurt most under layoffs based solely on seniority.
“One temptation is to save money by firing your most senior, most expensive teachers. The other way is to simply fire all your younger teachers in schools in historically underserved communities. Those are two ways not to do it,” he said in Denver.
Duncan said state educators have to be “more creative” to devise a fairer, performance-based system.
In a speech to educators at a labor-management conference in Denver Tuesday night, Duncan did not specifically address seniority-based layoffs. But The Post had earlier seen a draft of the secretary’s speech that slammed LIFO.
A Duncan source insisted that no one pressured him to edit out the LIFO remarks.