I’ve heard a number of comments regarding the discussion about teacher layoffs which seem to be . Below I will briefly lay out ten potential real-life scenarios, listed in descending order of moral defensibility that might make you think twice about killing LIFO outright. First a couple of preliminaries -- everybody wants to be rid of bad teachers and find a way to retain good young teachers, but making determinations about good and bad are highly subjective and personal. Most classroom teachers will tell you that they know a good teacher when they see one, that good teaching is an art rather than a science and that much of what makes a teacher successful cannot be taught. I don’t know if I agree with all that, but I do know that the most obvious ways one would think to measure teacher effectiveness, such as test scores, probably can’t work and are so subject to manipulation by administration that they are virtually useless as an evaluative tool. I also know from experience that Principals want teachers out of their buildings for personal reasons that have nothing to do with effectiveness, performance or student well-being. If you are skeptical about the difficulty in putting teacher performance on a measurable scale you should really read the wonderful post by teacherken at Daily Kos on this subject and/or the research that provided the data for it. My own personal journey from a newbie teacher with shaky exam results to being a vet with great results is illustrative of the problem. In my “breakthrough year” I had: changed my curriculum, revamped my review process, got one year better at classroom management, was given an entirely different population of kids and partnered with other teachers to create a flexible schedule. Two years after that, the state changed the test and made it significantly easier. Which variable was the most important in turning around my results? I don’t know and neither did my Principal.
OK – that said, let’s look at some of the things that will be taking place if Bloomberg gets his way on LIFO and see what you think…
- Rubber room guy: Everybody has heard of this one, a guy believed to be so incompetent that no Principal will actually let him near their building, so he sits, killing time in an office somewhere collecting a salary. This is the guy Bloomberg wants you to think of when he talks about ending LIFO.
- Burn out: 20 Year veteran has seen it all and just doesn’t care anymore. We all had one of these back in school and it would have been satisfying to see them booted out to another profession. Supposedly really hard to fire, but remember, that lazy 20 year burn-out was once a lazy 2nd year and some Principal gave him tenure.
- Slow developer: 4th year teacher who still doesn’t have it down, has a hard time either with management or really communicating with kids and maybe should be thinking about doing something else. But, what has administration done to support this person? Should anything be done or do they just get added to the huge list of new teachers that end up leaving the profession for easier careers?
- Bad team player: There are a lot of these – people who may or may not be a very effective teacher but who see things differently than the administration and refuse to go along with the program. These people are often hated and feared by administration because they undermine their “authority”. But, from a different perspective, many of these folks have been effective teachers for years and don’t want to change their successful practices based on the whims of administrators who often come and go. The two absolute best classroom teachers I ever saw fell into this category.
- New Mom or Dad: Many of the reforming schools around the city have created a culture that pushes teachers to stay for many (uncompensated) hours after the contractual day has ended. This strikes me as entirely appropriate for new teachers and for anybody during busy times. But after the fist few years it is certainly possible for most teachers to take work home and leave the building earlier. This is especially true when a teacher is starting a family as the responsibility for caring for young children typically falls on the parent that can leave work earlier. Under the kill-LIFO scenario there would be nothing to stop a Principal from laying off busy parents in favor of unattached twenty-somethings in order to maintain a go-go culture regardless of performance. This despite the fact that staying after school is not a criterion of effectiveness recognized in the teacher's contract with DOE or anywhere else.
- Future Mom: Same as above, but as an enterprising Principal why not just try to populate my staff with teachers not likely to disappear for months at a time to have kids? Seems like a good idea to keep more dudes around anyway -- they stay late, never have kids, shoot hoops...etc...
- Union activist: Everybody hates the gal who knows the rules...in every profession. The rules can be so annoying! Why not dispense with such pests by simply saddling them with a class of low performers, give a few unsatisfactory ratings and...bingo: just lay her off based on "merit". Not too likely that that the newbies will either know the rules or have any desire to make sure they are followed after that.
- The age-old grudge: In 1993 teacher X called Assistant Principal Y an "asshole". In 2011 now Principal Y finally gets his chance to do away with X, plus X costs twice what a young teacher does -- see how well that works for everyone?
- The anti-hottie: It's a tough choice for Mr. middle-aged male Principal -- 30 year veteran battle-axe or 26 year old hottie who wears a truly meritorious tank-top every once in a while. Hey the battle-axe had her chance, she should have saved her money for retirement. No?
- The earnest grader: Parents come to Principal to complain that Ms. Tough Grader is unfair to their kid and is jeopardizing promotion or graduation. Tough Grader has copious documentation to prove that the student's low grades are justified. Principal grows tired of parent complaints year after year, but Tough Grader refuses to budge on standards. Parents don't complain about good teachers, right? I guess Tough Grader just isn't performing like they should be...adios!
It is fair to say that much of this comes off as a slur against Principals and, well, there's no denying that that's true. In seven years of teaching (including student teaching, subbing, summer-school, etc.) I served with one great Principal, about 4 mediocre Principals and one absolutely horrible one. Some of the lesser one's probably would not have taken advantage of the ending of LIFO in the way I'm suggesting, but a couple absolutely would have. What makes me nervous about this, is really two things 1) That the practical and financial incentives lean heavily toward booting veteran teachers regardless of how that would effect education and 2) changing this policy has the potential to undermine all collective bargaining between the city and its employees -- which is what I suspect has been the goal of this administration all along.
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