keep the best (for less)

A MINNCAN PolICy PrIMer

KeeP the best (for less)End sEniority-basEd layoffs for fEwEr layoffs and bEttEr tEachErs

This report was published in May 2011 by MinnCAN: The Minnesota Campaign for Achievement Now.

To order copies of this reportplease contact MinnCANat [email protected]

MinnCAN: The Minnesota Campaign for Achievement Nowwww.minncan.org

Design & Layouthouse9design.ca

table of contents

1 last in, first out: A Painful Policy for students and teachers 4

2 students feel the Pain 4

3 seniority Does Not equal effectiveness 5

4 teachers feel the Pain 6

5 A better layoff system: easing the Pain for students and teachers 7

MINNCAN 4KeeP the best (for less)

1 National Council on Teacher Quality, Teacher layoffs: Rethinking “last-hired, first-fired” policies (Washington, DC: Author, February 2010) retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/p/docs/nctq_dc_layoffs .pdf; Minn. Stat. § 122A.40(11). In Minnesota, with limited exceptions, probationary teachers must be let go before tenured teachers. Layoffs of tenured teachers are also based on seniority, as well as any reinstatements.

2 The New Teacher Project, A smarter teacher layoff system (New York, NY: Author, 2010) retrieved from http://tntp.org/files/TNTP_Smarter_Teacher_Layoffs_Mar10.pdf

3 D.J. Boyd, H. Lankford, S. Loeb, and J.H. Wyckoff, Teacher layoffs: An empirical illustration of seniority vs. measures of effectiveness (Washington, DC: National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER), July 2010) retrieved from http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/1001421 -teacher-layoffs.pdf

last in, first out: A Painful Policy for students and teachersIn Minnesota’s budget crunch, teacher layoffs are inevitable. School districts face million-dollar deficits, and salaries are the bulk of their budgets. Many school districts are out of options.

When layoffs are a must, our priority should be keeping the best teachers. But we don’t look at how good or bad a teacher is at all when deciding which teachers to keep and which to let go. Minnesota is one of only 14 states that require districts to use seniority as the deciding factor in layoff decisions.1

Under this “last in, first out” system, schools get stuck letting go of newer teachers even if they are terrific. In other states, even “teacher of the year” candidates have lost their jobs due to these rules.2

Seniority-based layoffs = more layoffs. If seniority continues to be the only factor in layoff decisions, Minnesota will have to let more teachers go than if it laid off a mix of junior and senior teachers, based on their effectiveness in the classroom.

This wrong-headed policy hurts students the most, especially poor and minority students. Seniority-based layoffs throw schools with poorer, more diverse students into turmoil in particular because they generally have the most new teachers, who are the first to go.

As this policy primer will show, Minnesota can’t afford to keep laying off teachers without looking at their effectiveness. We must implement a quality-based layoff system that considers how well a teacher teaches alongside other factors, including how long that teacher has served.

students feel the PainSeniority-based layoffs hurt student achievement. Minnesota’s last-in, first-out requirement hurts students in three main ways:

• Some of the very best teachers get pink slips, while ineffective teachers get to keep their jobs. This lack of prioritization reduces a child’s chance of getting an effective teacher the next year.

• Students suffer more from layoffs because firing newer, lower-paid teach-ers means more layoffs are necessary to make the budget cuts needed.3

• Poor and minority students lose out the most, because their schools tend to have more novice teachers.

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5MINNCANKeeP the best (for less)

4 National Council on Teacher Quality, Teacher layoffs; E. Hanushek & S. Rivkin, How to improve the supply of high quality teachers (2003), in Diane Ravitch (ed.), Brookings Papers on Education Policy 2004 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press) retrieved from http://edpro.stanford.edu/Hanushek/admin/pages/files/uploads/Teacher %20quality.Brookings.pdf; National Council on Teacher Quality, (n.d.) Increasing the odds: How good policies can yield better teachers, (Washington, D.C.: Author) retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/nctq/images/nctq_io.pdf

5 National Council on Teacher Quality, Teacher layoffs.

6 C. Sepe & M. Roza, The dispropor-tionate impact of seniority-based layoffs on poor, minority students. Seattle (WA: Center for Reinvent-ing Public Education, May 2010) retrieved from http://www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/download/csr_files/rr_crpe _layoffs_rr9_may10.pdf

7 Ibid.

8 American Civil Liberties Union, Massive Teacher Layoffs at Three LAUSD Schools Violated State Guarantee of Equal Education for All [press release] (February 24, 2010) retrieved from http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/massive-teacher-layoffs -three-lausd-schools-violated-state -guarantee-equal-education-; Southern California Public Radio, LAUSD settlement to change teacher layoffs (October 5, 2010) retrieved from http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/10/05/lausd-settlement/

9 Boyd et al.

seniority Does Not equal effectivenessMany people assume that the most experienced teachers are the best. But research shows that third-year teachers are generally as effective as long-tenured ones.4 Studies consistently find that long experience does not equal continual improvement. After the early years, teaching quality begins to plateau. Seniority-based layoffs therefore let go of many teach-ers just when they hit their stride. Even forgetting tenure, most districts still use years of experience as the basis for layoffs, even among teach-ers too new to have gained tenure, typically in their third year.5

Although all students suffer under a seniority-based layoff system, poor and minority students suffer the most. Higher-poverty schools generally employ more novice and lower-paid teachers than wealthier schools, so their staffs can be crushed by layoffs. Last-in, first-out poli-cies rob poor students of some of their best teachers in the schools that need them the most. Talented teachers often move to wealthier schools as they gain years of experience, perpetuating the problem and further disrupting the lives of their students, many of whom sorely need stabil-ity at school.6 On average in a seniority-based layoff system, high-pov-erty schools lose at least 30 percent more teachers than their wealthier counterparts, and high-minority schools lose 60 percent more teachers than schools with fewer minority students.7

Take what happened in the Los Angeles Unified School District last year as an example, when several high-poverty middle schools were decimated by layoffs. To address its budget gap, the district eliminated 2,000 school positions, including a large percentage of teachers in core academic subjects. At one middle school, more than 70 percent of the teachers received layoff notices. At another school, the layoffs included almost the entire English department, along with all of the eighth-grade history teachers. The highest-needs schools in Los Angeles faced such a disproportionate impact in their loss of teachers that the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit arguing that the layoffs deprived thou-sands of low-income and minority students of their right to an education consistent with state standards.8

What would keeping the best teachers mean for students? By one expert estimate, the average student would gain an additional half-year of learning if teachers were retained based on effectiveness rather than seniority.9 Continuing to lay off teachers based on seniority, on the other hand, causes a measurable detriment to student learning. One study projects that students lose up to three-and-a-half months of learning after layoffs based on seniority versus effectiveness. Amidst widespread layoffs, Minnesota might as well end the school year in March.

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10 The New Teacher Project, A smarter teacher layoff system; M. Roza, Seniority-based layoffs will ex-acerbate job loss in public education. Seattle (WA: Center for Reinventing Public Education, February 2009) retrieved from http://www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/download/csr_files/rr_crpe _layoff_feb09_.pdf. Researchers calcu-late that if a district is required to use layoffs to cut its budget by 10 percent and cuts only the newest teachers, it will need to axe 14.3 percent of its workforce to meet the 10 percent budget reduction. On the other hand, if that district followed a seniority-neutral layoff policy, only 10 percent of the workforce would lose their jobs. Nationwide, if all districts followed a seniority-neutral layoff policy to save 10 percent of their budgets, 612,256 jobs would be lost compared with 874,623 lost under a seniority-based policy. A budget cut of $10 million in Minneapolis based only seniority alone would have required the district to lay off 109 additional teachers to realize the same savings as an effectiveness-based layoff policy. Surely there are reasons that the district would want to keep many of its more senior teachers, but the problem is that the law requires all such teachers to be retained while all more junior teachers are let go, regardless of effective-ness. Estimates are based on teachers in Minneapolis Public Schools with bachelor’s degrees and no additional credits; see salary schedule at http://www.mft59.org/docs/k12sched ules0509.pdf.


12 Ibid.

13 Boyd et al.

14 “Dayton Signs Minn. Teacher License Bill Into Law,” CBS Minnesota News (March 7, 2011) retrieved from http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/ 03/07/dayton-to-sign-minn-teacher-license-bill-into-law/

15 The New Teacher Project, Strengthening school staffing in Minneapolis Public Schools (New York,NY: Author, May 2009) retrieved from http://tntp.org/files/TNTP_Minneapolis_Report_May09.pdf

teachers feel the PainSeniority-based layoffs do not treat teachers as professionals. Students lose excellent teachers and a smaller teaching staff carries a heavier burden. If many of the remaining teachers are not great, how can we expect them to adequately handle the larger classes and greater respon-sibilities that layoffs will require?

Seniority-based layoffs lead to more job losses. Because nearly all teachers are paid more for each year of experience, seniority-based layoff policies require districts to retain the highest-paid teachers while letting go of lower-paid teachers. More teachers must lose their jobs for districts to meet their budget targets than if layoffs were based primarily on effectiveness, with a mix of new and experienced teachers receiving pink slips.10 If a district has to close a $10 million deficit, it would have to lay off 200 new teachers who each cost the district $50,000. But it would have to let go just 133 more experienced teachers who cost the district $75,000 each.11

Seniority-based layoffs also increase the likelihood that class sizes will rise as more teachers lose their jobs.12

In Minnesota, we’re working so hard to recruit and retain top teach-ers, only to put their jobs at the highest risk.13 Recent legislative wins to broaden nontraditional routes to Minnesota classrooms will be under-mined if we continue to dismiss highly effective teachers just because they are relatively new to the classroom.14 A study of Minneapolis schools found that although principals were highly satisfied with their newest hires, they were unable to keep the vast majority of those hired each year.15 At least some of the laid-off junior teachers leave the state, never to return.16 And a last-hired, first-fired policy may discourage great teachers from even entering the field: why take a job when you’re more likely to lose it?17

Moreover, teachers know what this policy does to children, and they don’t support it. Surveys show that even those teachers with decades of experience support layoff decisions that consider more than senior-ity alone. Three-quarters of teachers surveyed in one large study said factors other than length of service should be considered in layoff deci-sions. And that wasn’t just new teachers: more than half the teachers with 30 or more years of experience agreed.18 The survey found strong support for basing layoffs on quality, with teachers supporting a system that considered their effectiveness and performance—including class-room management, evaluation ratings and teacher attendance—more than time spent in the district.

Those opinions were confirmed in a national poll commissioned by StudentsFirst in March 2011. Forty-three percent of teachers in this survey supported changing last-in, first-out policies and 74 percent of voters in the survey supported the change.19 The poll found strong support for a merit-based layoff system, with three-quarters of voters and a majority of teachers agreeing that standardized tests, individu-

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16 S. Stachura, “New teacher layoffs may have broader impact on Minn. education,” Minnesota Public Radio (May 14, 2009) retrieved from http://minnesota.publicradio .org/display/web/2009/05/13/teacher_layoffs_impact/

17 “Teacher layoffs deter students from education field,” Huffington Post.com (April 5, 2011) retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ 2011/04/05/teacher-layoffs-college -students_n_845319.html

18 The New Teacher Project, A smarter teacher layoff system.

19 StudentsFirst, Poll finds strong national support for overturning last in, first out policy [press release] (March 23, 2011).

20 The New Teacher Project, The case against quality-blind teacher layoffs: Why layoff policies that ignore teacher quality need to end now (New York, NY: Author, February 2011) retrieved from http://tntp.org/files/TNTP_Case _Against_Quality_Blind_Layoffs _Feb2011.pdf

21 Ibid.

al student progress and principal assessments should be weighed in layoff decisions.

With that support, why haven’t more states made the change? In part, some common concerns remain, which we address here:20

• Aren’t seniority-based layoffs necessary for discrimination protection? No. Federal and state employment laws already provide protection for teachers against discrimination on the basis of age, gender, ethnicity, or other factors.

• If you don’t base layoffs on seniority, won’t they often be unfair? No. Basing layoffs on seniority is already unfair. Instead, clear and precise guidelines that use multiple and consistent evaluation measures focused on class-room effectiveness—with information such as evaluation ratings, teacher attendance data and student learning progress—can ensure fairness.

• Wouldn’t this policy just encourage laying off senior teachers for cost savings? No. With clear, consistent guidelines, all teachers can be judged individually on their effectiveness, without regard to the cost savings for each teacher.

Several states enacted or recently introduced legislation that would pro-hibit districts from making layoff decisions based solely on seniority. Illi-nois, Indiana, Colorado and Louisiana are among those that have recent-ly proposed or adopted legislation embracing quality-based layoffs.21 It’s time for Minnesota to join them.

A better layoff system: easing the Pain for students and teachersMinnesota must revise our current policy to enable schools and districts to take multiple factors into account when layoffs loom, including teach-ers’ impact in the classroom, as well as how long they have served. We need to do this now.

Minnesota needs to put an immediate end to its statewide require-ment that districts make layoff decisions based on seniority. The state must carefully but quickly establish a trusted evaluation system so that administrators can accurately, fairly and transparently measure teacher effectiveness. The state already has the tools at hand to do this.

Even while that new teacher evaluation system is being put into place, districts should be empowered to make better layoff decisions today. Re-

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search shows that principals do well identifying the very best and very worst of their teachers.22 By eliminating the statutory requirement for seniority-based layoffs, and requiring districts to consider effectiveness alongside other factors, state policymakers can enable administrators to build the strongest school teams, making layoff decisions when they are necessary based on teachers’ contributions to student learning.

About MinnCANMinnesota’s achievement gap—the persistent and significant disparity between the academic achievement of low-income and minority children and their white, middle-class peers—is the most urgent social and eco-nomic problem facing our state. We have one of the country’s largest achievement gaps between rich and poor kids and African-American and white kids. Each and every one of us is paying the price for our failing public schools. But Minnesota, and the entire nation, was built on the promise of universal education for all. Public schools are the corner-stone of our democracy. Our future is inextricably linked to the educa-tion of our children—all of them. MinnCAN is building a new movement of concerned citizens advocating to fundamentally reform our public schools through smart public policies. We will not rest until every Min-nesota child, regardless of race, ethnicity, or class, has access to a great public school.

www.MINNCAN.org

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