Regrettably, it now appears likely that budget cuts will require teacher layoffs in New York City public schools. These will be based solely on seniority under the current teachers-union contract. In Washington, DC, however, they’ve taken a different approach. They’re allowing principals to choose whom to lay off based on merit. We should follow DC’s lead and reject the indefensible practice of merit-blind layoffs.
At a time when we may be forced to do more with less, we need to keep our strongest and most talented teachers in the classroom. Layoffs based automatically on seniority prevent that. A junior teacher, even if he is the greatest pedagogue since Socrates, is automatically forced out while some marginally effective teachers remain just because they were hired first. This type of rigid trade-unionist approach has no place in our schools if our goal is to nurture and promote our most talented teachers. With historic budget deficits, this is no time for business as usual.
Some may say that our most experienced teachers are our best. Sometimes but not always. Experience isn’t everything. The committee responsible for drafting the Declaration of Independence included Benjamin Franklin, then America’s most famous writer with four decades of experience, but he deferred to a 33-year-old whippersnapper named Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson did all right.
Great teachers come in all shapes and sizes. I’m sure that we can all think of some experienced teachers we had who were wonderful, but others who weren’t. Similarly, some junior teachers are still finding their stride, but others are naturally gifted and have become masters of their craft. Rather than lay off people based on stereotypes, we should look at actual classroom performance. All decisions concerning hiring and termination at the charter schools I help run are based solely on merit.
Another important consideration is class size. According to the United Federation of Teachers, this is one of the most important factors in learning. Indeed, the UFT considers it so important that it has sued the city.
Unfortunately, the seniority-based layoffs on which the UFT insists will actually have the perverse effect of maximizing the effect of layoffs on class size. A teacher with three years of experience and 30 postgraduate credits makes $50,000 a year while a teacher with 22 years of experience can make more than $100,000. To save $100 million, you could either lay off 2,000 of the former or 1,000 of the latter. Obviously, laying off more teachers will have a bigger impact on class size.
Of course, we shouldn’t go to the other extreme of firing senior teachers first just because they are the most highly paid. That would be wrong and foolish. Rather, layoffs should be based on merit so that they will occur across the spectrum of seniority. This will have less of an impact on class size than firing based purely on seniority. If the UFT is really serious about its commitment to class size, then it should waive its insistence on seniority-based layoffs.
Nobody doubts that being laid off is painful. It’s not necessarily more painful, however, for an older person than a younger person, especially when the layoff is temporary. A teacher with 30 years of experience may have considerable savings and financially independent children. By contrast, some junior teachers are living hand-to-mouth, paying off student loans or starting a family on a meager salary.
But the real point is that the primary responsibility of schools isn’t to employ adults, it’s to educate kids. A policy of layoffs based on seniority is by definition solely about adults, because it looks only at what adults need rather than what those adults are doing for kids.
Nobody welcomes the possibility of layoffs. If they must happen, however, they must be designed to minimize the harmful impact on our kids. Doing so in a way that will indiscriminately remove some of our best teachers from the classroom and exacerbate the harmful effect of layoffs on class size doesn’t meet that test.
Eva Moskowitz is founder of the Success Academy Charter Schools and a former chair of the City Council’s Education Committee.