GOP Bill Taking Aim At Teacher Seniority Nears Vote
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - Minnesota lawmakers are preparing to vote this week on a top Republican priority that could affect every school in the state.
The bill would allow school districts to lay off ineffective teachers even if they have union seniority and classroom tenure.
Staff reductions hit Minnesota schools hard during the last few years of recession.
Now, a plan at the capitol would turn layoff rules upside down and make teachers with seniority as susceptible to layoffs as rookies.
Hundreds of Minnesota teachers are laid off every year. It's a hard move, made even harder by last-in, first-out layoff laws and union rules.
Lynnell Mickelsen raised three boys in the Minneapolis public schools, during a time of continuous layoffs.
"We had great teachers who were forced out, we had mediocre teachers who were retained," she said. "Teachers of color, who were often the last to be hired, were then the first to be pushed out."
The bill in the Minnesota House requires school districts to use teacher performance evaluations when deciding who to lay off, regardless of how long the teacher has been in the classroom.
The state's largest union of educators says districts can already negotiate performance into contracts but requiring it statewide will pit teacher against teacher.
"It will be about me being better than you, me being better than my colleagues, rather than all of us getting better and improving," Denise Specht, the president of EducationMN, said.
The state Department of Education reports 2,200 teachers lost their jobs through layoffs since 2008.
Supporters say it is unknown how many good teachers left and how many ineffective ones kept their jobs.
"Every child deserves the opportunity to achieve academic success, and quality teaching is an important part of that," Rep. Jennifer Loon, R-Eden Prairie, said.
House Republicans aren't only taking aim at layoff rules: They're also trying to make it easier for school districts to hire teachers from other states and easier to hire "community experts" to teach in schools, even if they are not teachers.
While it's true that Minnesota school districts already have the power to negotiate performance into teacher contracts, fewer than half have actually done so.
Meanwhile, there are new teacher evaluation standards in law, but that law did not go into effect until 2012, so there's been very little time to see if it works.
