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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Larry Sand</title>
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		<title>One Small Strike Against Teacher Seniority</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/larry-sand/one-small-strike-against-teacher-seniority/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=one-small-strike-against-teacher-seniority</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/larry-sand/one-small-strike-against-teacher-seniority/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Mar 2011 04:00:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Larry Sand]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=88699</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A court ruling in Los Angeles offers some hope for students in failing schools.]]></description>
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<p><a class="highslide" onclick="return vz.expand(this)" href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/seniority.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-88711" title="seniority" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/seniority.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="219" /></a></p>
<p><strong>This article is reprinted from <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/">City Journal</a>.</strong></p>
<p>Like many other cities, Los Angeles is  subject to a state education code requiring that, in the event of  teacher layoffs, the last hired is the first fired. Because they  invariably have a high percentage of new hires, the lowest-performing  schools usually take the brunt of the layoffs under this system,  destabilizing them further by requiring a revolving door of substitutes.</p>
<p>When the Los Angeles Unified School District, facing municipal  belt-tightening, sent out “reduction in force” notices in 2009, three  middle schools—Gompers, Liechty, and Markham, each ranking in the bottom  10 percent of California schools by academic performance—were  particularly hard hit. Sixty percent of the teachers at Liechty, 48  percent of the teachers at Gompers, and 46 percent of the teachers at  Markham received them. By contrast, the LAUSD sent layoff notices to  just 17.9 percent of its teachers system-wide. The notices resulted in a  large number of teacher vacancies at all three schools. By 2010,  according to an AP story, “More than half of the teaching staffs at  Edwin Markham, John H. Liechty and Samuel Gompers middle schools lost  their jobs . . . at Markham, the layoffs included almost the entire  English department along with every 8th grade history teacher.”</p>
<p>Alleging that the last-hired, first-fired policy violated poor  students’ right to a quality education, the American Civil Liberties  Union of Southern California filed a class-action lawsuit. Last month,  Superior Judge William Highberger ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The  judge cited a previously unacknowledged clause of the education code  stating that a district may deviate from seniority “for purposes of  maintaining or achieving compliance with constitutional requirements  related to equal protection of the laws.”</p>
<p>According to the ACLU, “The settlement reached between the plaintiffs  and LAUSD and the Mayor’s Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, protects  students in up to 45 Targeted Schools in the unfortunate event of  budget-based teacher layoffs.” Determined annually, the 45 schools will  be comprised of 25 under-performing and difficult-to-staff schools. Up  to 20 additional schools will be selected for protection from layoffs  based on the “likelihood that the school will be negatively and  disproportionately affected by teacher turnover.” Many, like incoming  LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, were thrilled, calling the decision  “historic.” Others claimed that it was the beginning of the end of the  seniority-based staffing system.</p>
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