The back and forth in the last couple of weeks over seniority layoff policies goes something like this. When districts are forced to lay off teachers based on seniority policies, those layoffs happen disproportionately at schools serving low income students. Research has shown that high rates of teacher turnover impacts the achievement levels at schools. This results in a civil rights issue because of the disproportionate impact that these policies have on the most disadvantaged students. (See National Journal discussion and new CRPE report for more details on the debate and research).
On the other side, the best argument seems to be that districts do not have good teacher evaluation systems, and until such evaluation systems are in place, any policy for teacher layoffs other than based on seniority would end up being arbitrary and could actually discriminate against veteran teachers because they are more expensive. In the long run, clearly districts need to improve the quality of their teacher evaluation systems for a lot of reasons including this one. Then the debate devolves into a fight over what are the right measures for an evaluation system. Over the next couple of years, we will learn a lot about measuring the effectiveness of teachers, and how to improve evaluation systems through the Race to the Top, other district level initiatives, and the Gate’s foundations investments. I think that your could change seniority policies, but not start to implement the change for a couple years to allow and force districts to delve into the difficult work of improving their teacher evaluation policies. But given the level of controversy, whether you think that teacher effectiveness should replace seniority in determining layoffs or not, there are improvements that could be made even while maintaining seniority as the main factor in the layoff process.
There is a middle ground for seniority policies that will at least address the civil rights concerns of current seniority policies Here is my compromise. Make the seniority policies apply on a school site level, and not districtwide. So, when a district decides that it needs to lay off teachers, it determines the number of teachers that need to be laid off in total, and how those layoffs are distributed across the schools. Then the layoff at the school site are determined based on seniority. Let’s assume that the layoffs will require the equivalent of one teacher from each school. Then the youngest teacher at each school would be laid off. This would mean that at some schools (likely most of the low performing schools) they would lose a first year teacher. While in some of the suburban middle class schools with low teacher turnover, the school might lose a 3rd or 4th year teacher. The net result of this policy would be that the pain of teacher layoffs would be more evenly spread and not disproportionately land on the low income schools. And, districtwide, it would result in a lot less teacher mobility. The current system requires a lot of teacher reallocations and mismatches before a new equilibrium is reached. This proposal would not address some of the other problems with seniority policies, but it is a step in the right direction.
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09/03/10 | Kris Amundson gives Virginia policymakers a true/false quiz on the condition of K-12 public education in the state.
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09/01/10 | Chad Aldeman's and Kevin Carey's thoughts on value-added teacher evaluations are featured in The Atlantic
During school closures we’ve often had compromises along the lines you mention. And perhaps your middle ground could suggest an imperfect but better way of using test score growth. The same type of VAMs could produce growth targets for individual teachers based not on system-wide or statwide patterns but on the school’s pattern. This would be unlovely, and unloved by the developers of those models, but it would have the advantage of being reality based. It would take into account the peer dynamics and the policies at that school.
“Reformers” and others often claim that different teachers with the same kids get different results. Often that’s true, but often those statements are made by people with too little real-world knowledge to judge. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that teachers, students, parents, and even administrators usually know who the bottom performers are. Its obvious! We just play this growth model test score game to seek fig leafs, following education’s fundamental rule of not letting the patient die on your operating table. And every year we hire the best applicants we can find, knowing that many new hires don’t have a snowball’s chance of becoming effective.
And this would be valuable for central offices if they really want equity. If the best teachers at a school can’t ever increase performance by more than a point or two, or if it even takes a fantastic teacher to slow the decline, maybe that says something about the learning culture, the policies, and the other cards that are dealt to that school.
And Melody, I also agree with you. But the issue may be whether we’ll waste the opportunity and more tens billions of dollars pusuing policies that are often worse than Bush’s, and escalate this educational civil war into a legal Battle of Verdun, or do we make some compromises, agree to disagree and make some improvements.
We need leadership that knows education and the effects of all decision that fall within our boundaries. We need courageous leadership that is willingto make the unpopular decision to cut lose ineffecive teachers and challenge the status quo in order to support student learning and professional development for teachers. We must put together an effective teacher evaluation model that will help increase student learning and promote teacher best practices. Along with this new policy administrators need to be able to hire staff memebers that fit our learning community needs. Watts is not made for everyone, But if you believe you have what it takes to help us reform Education in Urban America please call me for an interview as soon as possible. I would love to go fight on your behalf.
Sure, half a baby is better than none.
Still, it doesn’t seem to get at the root of the problem, which is that high-poverty schools are tough places to work — so turnover is high. So, you’re putting a little band-aid on it. A different evaluation system is not going to help, either. We really need more enlightened leadership at the top and better support and pay to encourage people to stick with these challenging jobs.