Teachers and other Public Workers Face New Rash of Layoffs

Teachers and other Public Workers Face New Rash of Layoffs

A wave of layoffs will likely happen this summer, and my group, StudentsFirst.org, calculates that at least 160,000 teachers are at risk of losing their jobs. What makes this even tougher on kids is that the majority of the country's states and school districts conduct layoffs using an antiquated policy referred to as "last in, first out." The policy mandates that the last teachers hired are the first teachers fired, regardless of how good they are. As it stands now, teachers' impact on students plays absolutely no role in these decisions.

In difficult times like this, it may be easier to turn a blind eye to the compelling connection between teachers and our future long-term prosperity. We cannot do this to our kids. If we want to come out on the other side of this crisis with public education stronger, we have to do everything possible to keep our best teachers in the classroom. Last in, first out policies actively work against this goal. Here's why:

First, research indicates that when districts conduct seniority-based layoffs, we end up firing some of our most highly effective educators. These are the inspiring and powerful teachers that students remember for the rest of their lives, and our nation will lose more of them with every such layoff.

Second, last in, first out policies increase the number of teachers that districts have to lay off. Because junior teachers make less money, schools will lose more teachers and more jobs as long as these policies are permitted by law.

In the state of Wisconsin, where many marched in protest last year to widespread cuts to education and attacks on collective bargaining under Gov. Scott Walker, things aren’t looking so great for teachers.

“We hear from members anywhere from second-year teachers to people with 12 years of teaching experience who are uncertain about where they’re going to be,” Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Education Association (WEA), a union that represents teachers in the state, told Raw Story. A number of teachers have told her they’re seeking work in other nearby states like Minnesota, Iowa or Illinois, where there is higher pay and less uncertainty

In California, the governor is threatening to eliminate 15,000 state jobs. When school begins in Cleveland this fall, more than 500 teachers probably will be out of work. And in Trenton — which has already cut a third of its police force, hundreds of school district employees and at least 150 other public workers — the only way the city will forestall the loss of 60 more firefighters is if a federal grant comes through.

Government payrolls grew in the early part of the recovery, largely because of federal stimulus measures. But since its postrecession peak in April 2009 (not counting temporary Census hiring), the public sector has shrunk by 706,000 jobs. The losses appeared to be tapering off earlier this year, but have accelerated for the last three months, creating the single biggest drag on the recovery in many areas.

Pennsylvania, for example, has shed 5,400 government jobs this year, and many school districts and social service agencies are contemplating more layoffs. “We have slipped to the middle of the pack in terms of job growth,” said Mark Price, a labor economist at the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center. “And that was driven mainly by the fact that we lost so many jobs in the public sector.”

Public workers became a point of contention in the presidential campaign recently when Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, criticized President Obama for wanting to increase the number of government employees through stimulus measures. “He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers,” Mr. Romney said, adding: “It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”

Mr. Obama has made the counterargument that during past recessions the government sector has grown, rather than shrunk. The White House later said he meant recessions and the recoveries that followed.

President Barack Obama’s American Jobs Act included money designed to prevent up to 400,000 teacher layoffs, but Friday marks the one-year anniversary of Congress failing to pass the bill.

Both Bell and Keith Johnson, the president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, found Republicans’ comments at the convection last week to be disappointing. Though former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called for improving teacher pay, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie got the crowd to roar with the zinger, “[Democrats] believe in teacher’s unions. We believe in teachers.”

Johnson responded, “People are blaming teachers for everything short of an act of god. … Much of the education reform that has been successful has been achieved through collective bargaining with teachers’ unions.”

Sources:

The Raw Story

PressDemocrat.com
CNN.com
NYTimes.com
CBS Atlanta 46