Proponents of basing teacher layoffs on performance rather than seniority got a big victory today.

The Minnesota House passed a bill that would end the practice of using experience as the deciding factor when schools have to let teachers go.

Despite criticism from opponents that the legislation was moving too fast and had potential legal landmines that haven’t been addressed, lawmakers passed the bill on a 68-61 vote on mostly party lines.

Minnesota is one of 11 states that still has so-called “last in, first out” layoff of practices on the books. Proponents argue it hurts student achievement because they lose effective teachers and forces more teachers to lose their jobs because districts have to let go of their least expensive teachers.

“We don’t have to be quality blind when we lay people off,” said House Majority Leader Matt Dean. “We need to do better.”

Some Democrats say they agree that Minnesota’s system of seniority-based layoffs is outdated and needs to be changed to base those decisions on peformance. But there are too many issues that haven’t been addressed.

Rep. Jim Davnie, DFL-Minneapolis, said letting go of teachers based on evaluations that could be up to three years old and is private data under state law is a recipe for an explosion of lawsuits. If a teacher is laid off, they have no ability to figure out why they were let go but another teacher kept on.

“I have no ability to find that out. That’s going to bring me into the

courtroom. That’s going to bring in the lawyers,” Davnie said.

Getting rid of “last in, first out” may have traction in the Republican-led House. But the GOP Sen. Gen Olson, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, has taken the bill off the table to work out some of the concerns people have with it.

It’s unclear whether DFL Gov. Mark Dayton would sign a bill that would eliminate seniority-based hiring practices.

Article source: http://www.twincities.com/legislature/ci_19981242

Other Posts

Filed under: Daily Layoffs News

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!