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ALBANY — Last in, cop out.
President Obama’s education czar flip-flopped on the controversial “last in, first out” teacher layoff policy — initially circulating a copy of a prepared speech that blasted the practice, only to later abandon the pledge in his address to union-member educators in Denver last night, The Post has learned.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan failed to even the use the word “seniority” when alluding to layoffs during an address on labor-management issues last night.
“My view is that we need to look hard at the impact of staffing rules and policies on students, especially in low-achieving schools,” Duncan said in the speech he delivered last night.
“That means recruiting the best teachers and then making sure our state laws, labor contracts and personnel practices support these teachers and keep them in their schools,” Duncan said.
But Duncan slammed LIFO in an earlier draft of his speech, which was obtained by The Post.
“My view is that we need to look hard at the impact of seniority rules on students, especially in low-achieving schools. The goal should always be to maintain the most effective work force, regardless of years of experience or salary levels,” he said in the earlier version.
“Last-in, first-out policies can disproportionately remove great newer teachers who take on tough educational challenges,” the earlier draft said.
In the earlier version, Duncan even noted that the ACLU blocked seniority-based layoffs in a court settlement in Los Angeles and pointed out that “Mayor Bloomberg has called for a change in state law in New York.”
Those references were also dropped from the final speech.
A Duncan official insisted that the secretary didn’t buckle last night to political pressure — and didn’t drop LIFO reform comments from the speech to placate union leaders.
Duncan’s office instead downplayed his decision. “This is what he decided to say right now. It’s a tough issue,” a spokesman said. “This is how he wanted to say it. This is the beginning of a conversation, not the end. He wanted to be positive. He felt this was a positive way to introduce [the issue].”
Duncan did propose offering higher pay to teachers who work in hard-to-staff schools or those who teach in hard-to-staff subjects such as math and science, initiatives that unions often oppose.