Time to stop seniority-based teacher staffing

SUPERINTENDENT Hite recently made a bold announcement: Principals in the School District of Philadelphia would no longer have to use seniority as the sole factor in staffing decisions. School leaders will be empowered to manage their workforce in a way that makes sense for their students.

This will help to keep our best teachers in the classrooms and schools that need them the most - and kids will benefit.

Unfortunately, state law prohibits this in all other districts in the commonwealth. But House Bill 1722 presents an opportunity for Pennsylvania to fix this and protect excellent teachers by reforming the practice of seniority-based layoffs.

I know firsthand that this sort of change isn't easy. For three decades, I fought on the front lines of education as a math teacher and as president of the Washington, D.C., teachers union.

I have engaged in debates over teacher evaluations, teacher pay, testing and school choice, and I've come to understand that a remarkable diversity of opinion exists within the teaching community and its unions about these and other major reform ideas. Yet Pennsylvania has demonstrated that consensus on divisive issues, such as teacher quality, is possible.

When I led the D.C. teachers union, I did something unheard of by other union leaders: I supported reforming seniority laws to protect the best teachers. Here's why: I had an "aha moment."

I was at an elementary school discussing with a class my responsibility as union president. I said, "As president, I make sure your teachers get the support that they need and that you have the best teachers." As I got up to leave, a little girl gave me a hug and thanked me for caring about the students and making sure they had the best teachers.

As I left that little girl's classroom, I realized I had lied to her. The decisions I was making as a union leader were not putting students' interests first - in fact, they were sometimes preventing the best teachers from being in the classroom.

Pennsylvania has a chance to make both a student-focused and adult-focused change by protecting excellent teachers and ensuring that they stay in the classroom. Achieving this type of real progress, however, requires collaboration and compromise from all factions of the education community. But it's possible, because we share a fundamental goal: creating a system that ensures that all our kids have the best teachers and schools possible.

And it can be done. I worked with Michelle Rhee, who was then the D.C. chancellor, on an agreement to reform the system to use performance, rather than seniority, in staffing decisions. The agreement was rooted in the shared belief that academic and teaching standards must be raised, while also treating teachers fairly and giving them the tools to succeed. When it was put up for a contract vote, more than 80 percent of my members voted in support of the change.

Making sure that the best teacher is at the front of the classroom takes hard work. A teacher's performance in the classroom, not seniority, should be used in personnel decisions, such as reduction-in-force dismissals, tenure and placement. By using the state's evaluation system, all teachers - new and veteran - are on a level playing field.

I have seen the transformation that can occur in the classroom of an effective teacher. Unfortunately, I also have seen children lose the love of learning in an ineffective teacher's classroom. Education is a powerful tool, and every child across the commonwealth deserves to be taught by a great teacher at a great school.

We've seen before how teachers unions and reformers can work together to create beneficial policies for students and teachers. I hope to see collaboration in Harrisburg as we work to pass this critical legislation in Pennsylvania. I urge legislators, education leaders, teachers, parents and reformers to work together for our kids and for the excellent teachers in Pennsylvania.