Each spring the uncertainties of student enrollment, teacher transfers or retirement, and funding make budgetary predictions difficult.
To remain financially sound some districts send out pink slips to the newest teachers. In no way is this ideal. These teachers face uncertainty about their employment future. Some of the district’s best teachers, who happen to be new hires, may not have their contracts renewed.
New legislation, yet to be introduced, may change how districts respond to RIFs. Instead of RIFs base on level of experience they may be based on a teacher’s evaluation relative to other teachers.
This bill, I assume, is in response to schools being unable to retain effective teachers when they are forced to lay off staff.
In 2009-2010, 3% of Washington’s teachers were given RIF notices. 87% of those teachers were recalled. Evidence does not suggest that the best and brightest young teachers are losing out to ineffective veterans.
Still, this idea is compelling. Shouldn’t the best teachers be the last ones to be laid off? Yes. If only it were that simple.
Distinguishing between the best and the worst teacher in a school may not be that difficult. But it is much more difficult to distinguish between the second and the third worst (one may keep their job while the other may not).
New evaluation systems are expected to have different criteria for novice and experienced teachers. Is a good novice teacher more effective than an average experienced teacher? Who wins in this RIF race a teacher with five years of solid student growth and one recent year of poor growth or the second year teacher with two years of average growth?
What are the recall rights for a RIFed teacher?
When the art program is cut can somebody determine the relative effectiveness between a high school and elementary art teacher?
The idea, keeping the best, is elegant. Implementing this idea? Not so much. Since relatively few new teachers actually lose positions this law is unlikely to result in an improved teaching force.
I'd like to see lawmakers put their efforts elsewhere. If lawmakers want to address the problems related to RIFs they should fulfill their paramount duty and fully fund education. And they should allow local school districts the time and space to implement the new evaluation criteria. Many stakeholders came together to put this evaluation model in place. Rolling out this system will be challenging. Rolling out this system while simultaneously addressing the complexities of a new model for RIFs seems unwise. But I'm no lawmaker…
That fantastic! realy! these website is way better then everything I ever saw. Thanks admin.
I think the Unions offering the districts a RIF list would be a powerful statement and possibly help slow some of the anit-union sentiment. But oh the devil in the details. To add multiple evaluators to a new multi-tiered evaluation systems…Yet I strongly believe a cadre of evaluators could actually produce a broader more well rounded summary of a teacher’s performance. A challenge worth taking on.
drpezz,
I don’t know, but a good local should have their finger on the pulse of the staff… we know each others’ reputation, so that could be a starting point for some opening questions to deconstruct what in a reputation is true or not. There’d have to be some kind of legal language to designate the union’s role in selecting those on the RIF list, and the teachers would have to have as much (if not more) confidence in their local than their administration. That doesn’t exist everywhere.
A few of us have been batting this idea about as the TPEP stuff comes on line… it’s all in the brainstorming phases right now.
Mark,
I just don’t know how we’d do it without being the evaluators ourselves.
What do you think? Any way to do it well?
HB 2427 was heard by House Ed last night (1/24). You can watch the hearing on TVW at http://www.tvw.org/index.php?option=com_tvwplayer&eventID=2012010168
This is where I’d like to see local unions taking a stronger position. Not in fighting the district or the legislature, but looking inward to their own ranks and identifying, from within, the teachers who need support, remediation, or a gentle suggestion that they ought to consider a different profession.
If the charge of our union (and I am writing as a building union representative) is to maintain the quality and integrity of our profession by protecting the rights of our employees AND looking out for the best interest of students, we ought to actively, proactively rather than reactively, help remove ineffective teachers from our ranks and promote effective teachers to positions of influence and power (untitled leadership, that is) at the local level.
Think how powerful a reform statement would be for the union to take the position that they would be giving to the district a list of recommended people to put on the RIF list.
The potential pitfalls vastly outnumber the intended positives.
Besides the evaluation system being brand new, consider that:
– no two evaluators assess the same,
– highly qualified evaluators are seemingly more often the exception than the rule (which may be the best kept secret in education),
– seniority is not usually the first determiner of retention (subject, level, program, etc. are also factors),
– a single year’s evaluation should not be the sole determiner, and
– the new evaluation is not designed to rank teachers against one another but to provide for professional growth.
Beyond that, much as people dislike to hear it, a seniority-based system is the most objective, non-biased method in use today, and it used quite effectively in numerous industries and fields.
P.S. If the perceived problem is poor performing teachers, counsel them out or put them on growth plans with set timelines. If the plan doesn’t work, they’re gone. This requires effective administrators to do their duties.
We should be curing the disease, not treating the symptoms.