A new analysis from Matthew A. Kraft at Brown University links the characteristics of laid-off teachers to changes in student achievement. The analysis was conducted in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS), which laid off just over a thousand teachers as a result of the Great Recession in 2009 and 2010. Since North Carolina is one of five states where collective bargaining is illegal, a discretionary layoff policy was used rather than the more common “last-hired, first-fired” (sometimes referred to as LIFO—last in, first out) method. CMS identified candidates for layoffs based on five general criteria: duplicative positions, enrollment trends, job performance, job qualifications, and length of service.
Kraft estimates the effects of these layoffs on student achievement by using both principal observation scores (which directly informed layoffs) and value-added scores (which were not used to make layoff decisions). This enabled him to compare the impact of a teacher layoff based on subjective and objective measures of effectiveness. The good news for CMS students is that, overall, laid-off teachers received lower observation scores from principals and had lower value-added scores in math and reading compared to their counterparts who weren’t laid off. Kraft found that math achievement in grades that lost an effective teacher decreased between .05 and .11 standard deviations more than grades that lost an ineffective teacher.
The difference between laying off a senior teacher versus an early-career teacher was substantially smaller and statistically insignificant, suggesting that effectiveness was not a function of experience. That said, some of the most effective teachers were not only veterans, but teachers who returned to teaching after retiring (sometimes called “double dippers” because they draw a pension and a salary). Unfortunately, these teachers were among the first to be laid off— an unwise decision from an achievement standpoint (though perhaps not from a financial one) since they were substantially more effective than the average CMS teacher (their evaluation scores were two-thirds of a standard deviation higher than the district average).
Three key takeaways emerge: 1) principal evaluations and value-added scores both have predictive validity, while seniority alone has little predictive power when it comes to the impact of teacher layoffs on student achievement; 2) if achievement is to take precedence, schools should prioritize performance over seniority when staff reductions become necessary; and 3) policymakers should allow school leaders to use discretion when deciding which teachers to lay off rather than setting rigid rules around reduction-in-staff procedures.
Matthew A. Kraft, “Teacher Layoffs, Teacher Quality, and Student Achievement: Evidence from a Discretionary Layoff Policy,” Education Finance and Policy (August 2015).
