THE ISSUE: New York state’s “last in, first out” law for handling teacher layoffs
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The Post claims that Mayor Bloomberg wants to minimize the impact of the layoffs by not being forced to lose the best teachers because of the “last in, first out” seniority system (“Reason for Hope,” Editorial, Feb. 10).
Where do you get the idea that the best teachers are the newest teachers?
I’m sure many of these teachers are innovative and energetic, but just imagine how much better they will be in five or 10 years, once they’ve had a chance to master their craft.
Will you still be singing their praises then, or will you be referring to them as “less-qualified” as you do to the current veteran teachers?
Gary Malone
Whitestone
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The Post’s war on the public schools’ Absentee Teacher Reserve (ATR) continues. You lump the ATRs together with “teachers with excessive, but unjustified, absences and teachers who’ve received ‘unsatisfactory’ ratings.”
I am an ATR, but I have not been absent excessively and I have never received an unsatisfactory rating. My “crime” is that my original school decided it could get along with one teacher with a reading license rather than two, so I was excessed.
Why was I excessed, rather than the other reading teacher? Because she had more seniority than I did.
Many ATRs are not parasites taking advantage of seniority — rather, they are “victims” of that system.
Jonathan Joseph
Brooklyn
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Former Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, current Chancellor Cathie Black and over-elected Bloomberg extol the virtues of keeping younger teachers and laying off older ones.
Isn’t it funny that their notion is coming from three people over 60?
Do you have to be wizened, wrinkled and wretched yourself to insist on young people around you?
Sid Rubinfeld
Middle Village
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Seniority in determining teacher layoff is really not the issue. In fact, seniority is a fair way to select personnel to reduce staff.
The real issue is why incompetent teachers are allowed to continue teaching. If we make seniority an issue only at cost-reduction times, are we saying that it is OK to have bad teachers in good times?
Eliminate the bad teachers all the time.
Fred Karasek
Chester, NJ
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Principal Dakota Keyes of PS 272 states, “We should give our children the very best teachers — whether they were hired 20 years ago or 20 days ago. It should be the same standards on the merits” (“B’klyn Turnaround Teachers Face Ax,” Feb. 7).
Now a 20-year teacher isn’t even as good as a teacher who teaches for 20 days?
This is legalized age discrimination and union-busting, and I believe both are illegal.
Genevieve Berretta
Brooklyn
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The teachers union is against “last in, first out” on the basis that experience matters.
If that is true, then it should matter that much more when it comes to electing a president, yet teachers supported the much-less-experienced Barack Obama over John McCain.
OK, class. Who can define the word hypocrisy?
Lenny Rodin
Forest Hills
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There is no doubt that the Bloomberg administration has made great strides in calling attention to the urgent need for reform in public schools.
But eliminating the last-in, first-out policy isn’t a smart reform strategy. Young teachers, while enthusiastic, do not necessarily make good teachers.
As important, LIFO is a protection against administrators who play favorites, a virulent form of politicking that could railroad highly competent teachers and especially devastate students from “underserved” areas. We applaud Bloomberg for wanting to get rid of bad teachers. Unfortunately, scrapping LIFO isn’t the solution.
James Samuelson
Astoria