CAP: Instead of Teacher Layoffs or Bailouts, Try Buyouts

Matt Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, in his weekly column for the Washington Post argues that instead of the massive teacher layoffs coming, try buyouts--certainly not a bailout.

This takes a little explaining. The coming teacher firings are doubly disastrous because labor contracts and state laws require that most layoffs be done on the basis of seniority -- that is, newer teachers get the ax first. The trouble with this "last-in, first-out" rule is that layoffs are made with no concern for whether the teachers in question are any good. Yet in many big districts, huge efforts have been made in recent years to hire talented young teachers via programs such as Teach for America and the New Teacher Project to work with the nation's neediest children. With one awful stroke, these layoffs could eviscerate years of such recruiting, giving poor kids the shaft once again.

Comments

[teacherteacher]

I'm not too thrilled to see what happens with the likelihood that I'll be let go, but this proposal makes sense from a simple economic interest point of view for school districts.

[Lea]

Teach for America doesn't hire "talented young teachers." It hires college graduates who are given 6 weeks of training and then put in classrooms with some of our neediest students. TfA teachers tend to only teach for a few years, perpetuating the churn and revolving door at the schools with the greatest need for stability.

A greater concern is the punitive measures of NCLB and Race To the Top. If teachers face losing their jobs over test scores or seeing their pay linked to test scores when study after study shows that poverty has a greater impact on test scores than the teacher does, who will want to work in the neediest schools? Teachers don't get into the profession for the money, but we do still have families to support.