IF, AS SEEMS likely, New York City must lay off thousands of teachers because of budget problems, Mayor Michael Bloomberg would like a say in who goes and who stays. Topping his list of those who should lose their jobs are 2,671 teachers who have been rated unsatisfactory over the past five years, 882 teachers who lack a teaching license, 291 whom an arbitrator found to be incompetent or guilty of malfeasance and 183 with records of excessive lateness or absenteeism. But state law enshrining the policy of "last in, first out" doesn't allow performance to be a factor and that means good teachers - possibly even great teachers - are likely to be forced out of the classroom.
It's an indefensible policy, and it is not unique to New York. In most school systems, seniority trumps other considerations in determining whether a teacher stays or goes. As the New Teacher Project found in a searing new report, it's actually illegal in 14 states to consider any factor other than a teacher's length of service when making layoff decisions. Only the District and three states - Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma - require schools to consider job performance in making teacher layoff decisions.
