One Small Strike Against Teacher Seniority
Larry Sand on a judge's recent ruling against layoffs by seniority that affects 45 schools in LA:
Some perspective is in order. Despite the winners' elation and the losers' laments, seniority has not been dismantled. The court ruling protects students at the 45 lowest-performing schools, but not students at the remaining 800 LAUSD campuses. Thus, the unjust seniority system remains in force in about 95 percent of the district's schools. The LAUSD recently announced that it could lay off almost 4,500 teachers—all based on seniority—in June. No doubt many fine teachers will leave the profession, while many of lower quality stay on. To the detriment of hundreds of thousands of school children, seniority remains alive and well in the Los Angeles public schools. For now, the winners are the children at the bottom-performing schools, who will not lose any teachers due to seniority. The losers are the children at all the other district schools, which will incur more layoffs to accommodate the bottom 45. These schools will no doubt lose some excellent teachers.
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Larry Sand
One Small Strike Against Teacher Seniority
A court ruling in Los Angeles offers some hope for students in failing schools.
22 March 2011
City Journal
posted by Whitney Tilson at 2:11 PM
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