During these tough economic times, one expects to hear news of budget shortfalls, such as Ohio's South-western school district's $5 million budget hole discussed by Emmy earlier this week. Devastating though it may be, the current economic recession feels beyond the control of policy wonks like us, and is predictable inasmuch as business cycles rise and fall in ??(somewhat) understandable patterns. And so we wait it out and hope for the best.
For educators and ed reformers what hurts most is the manner in which many school districts are responding to this fiscal crisis--firing teachers for the sole reason that they are young or new. In a previous Flypaper blog post, Mike explored "last hired, first fired" policies that can send talented young teachers straight to the back of the unemployment line. He writes:"'Last hired, last fired' is an outrage. It makes a mockery of meritocracy. It saps the energy from our youngest teachers, and reward longevity over effectiveness."
"Outrage" and "mockery" are right. Not only are such policies unfair and indiscriminant, but they actually exacerbate job loss, as explained by this report (PDF) by Marguerite Roza. She demonstrates that seniority-based layoffs (as opposed to those that would be seniority-neutral) results in much higher overall job loss. For example, if budget cuts forced a district to reduce salary expenditures by five percent, Roza points out that "Some 305,670 personnel would be eliminated if districts used seniority-neutral layoffs, compared with 460,328 if seniority was the basis for job cuts."
The argument extends well beyond a cost-benefit analysis. Teacher quality has a profound impact on student achievement, and I think few would argue that indiscriminant firing of new teachers (especially productive ones) is in the best interests of children. During tough economic times, we need quality teachers more than ever. We at Fordham spoke recently with a young teacher who might have agreed with the characterization of "last-hired, first-fired" policies as outrageous, except he had a much better way of stating it. After his union voted for a pay raise, the district levy failed and--you guessed it--the younger teachers got canned.?? While the older teachers are enjoying their pay raises, he is trying to find a new job. When asked what his opinion was of teachers' unions, he responded, "They eat their young."
Not a kind characterization, but true nonetheless.
