A Camden principal fired six years ago for whistle-blowing thrives; the district struggles. (Inquirer)
Rishawn Biddle calls New York City’s latest ed policy news “all in all, not a bad move.” (Dropout Nation)
The chair of L.A.’s Democratic party wants DFER to stop using the party name. (LACDP via Ravitch)
NYCparent
Re Duncan on Tutoring — it especially doesn’t work if the kids don’t show up but the vendors bill for them anyway! SES tutoring under NCLB was just one more big vendor cash cow — along with endless tests and test prep materials — that provided no “added value” to kids, but plenty to the vendors’ bottom lines!
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ Norm
“Top-rated teacher Maribeth Whitehouse offers 10 explanations for why she teaches. (Learning Matters)”.
I know that Maribeth from her work with her school”s robotic team and I bet she is a top teacher. But what does top-rated mean? Discredited Teacher Data Reports?
Ken Hirsh
Unless I’m misunderstanding the math, the fourth headline could be rewritten as “The director of fiscal strategy for StudentsFirst points out that LIFO causes more teachers to be laid off.”
In other words, regardless of the overall merits of LIFO, it seems clear that it causes more teachers to be laid off. It’s not a matter of opinion.
Vote NO!
That’s very myopic. There are a lot more costs associated with throwing veteran teachers or employees on the unemployment line than the savings gained from dumping a higher salary. Veteran teachers generally are homeowners, and have dependent children. The loss of salary would more likely result in foreclosure, and more people on the medicaid roles. This has a tremendous cost to society which in most cases will far outweigh any salary savings from laying off a higher salaried teacher. A foreclosed home brings down property values, leading the teacher’s neighbors to challenge their assessments. resulting in less tax revenue. Tax dollars that have to go to medicaid will mean less money for education.
Then again “education reform” is part of the war on the middle class.
Mr. Flerporillo
“This has a tremendous cost to society which in most cases will far outweigh any salary savings from laying off a higher salaried teacher.”
I think I know the answer to this already, but in case I’m wrong, do you have any evidence whatsoever to support this assertion? This is an extremely unconvincing argument.
Vote NO!
” This is an extremely unconvincing argument.”
What part of the current state of the economy makes you think this is an ” unconvincing argument?” Maybe for residents of Manhattan? But for the rest of the country..It’s “food stamp nation.”
–SNAP program is 67 Billion dollars annually,
–in NY State Medicaid reimbursements are greater than school aid
–30 year fixed rate mortgages are under 4% and outside of Manhattan…Housing prices are going NOWHERE..What country do you live in?
The last thing this country needs is to layoff ANY MORE workers.
Mr. Flerporillo
Unemployment has economic effects, sure. But you wrote that firing veteran teachers instead of more junior teachers will reduce tax revenue dollars that would flow to the DOE’s budget in an amount that would exceed whatever wage savings the DOE gained. I asked if you had any evidence to support that assertion, and you appear not to. Which makes sense, because the assertion is unprovable at best, and ridiculous worse. In either event, it’s unconvincing.
But now it looks like you’re just arguing that the DOE should make personnel decisions with the goal of stimulating demand in the local economy. If so, I disagree.
Vote NO!
FLERP
I’m sorry that you seem to be very ignorant of economics. There are tremendous costs associated with laying of veteran employees in any field, not just teachers. This is very convincing. Younger teachers generally are NOT homeowners with mortgages, nor do they have dependent children. The tax money which pays all municipal salaries comes from general revenue. If you save 30K by laying off a veteran teacher, but then that teacher, and his/her family is left with no health insurance. Society will pay that cost by increases to the medicaid rolls. If that teacher losses their home because they can’t pay their mortgage, that effects all property values in the neighborhood. Neighbors will pay appeal their assessments, and in may cases WIN! Resulting in less tax revenue to the municipality. I work in the school system. It is apparent that you don’t! Very few young teachers have the financial responsibility that veteran teachers have. Very few teachers with 5 years of less have homes, or children. There are very large costs to laying of teachers with 15 or more years of experience most of whom do have dependent children, and homes with mortgages. Older employees do NOT find jobs as easily when they are laid off. This is what is happening in this country RIGHT NOW!
Stop trying to defend the moronic economic philosophy that has gotten this country into the mess it is in.
Mr. Flerporillo
I’m not an economist, it’s true. I can tell you’re not one, either. This thread began when Ken observed that, according to the article linked above, LIFO causes more layoffs than layoffs based on “effectiveness” would cause. You responded by calling Ken “myopic” and asserting that firing veteran teachers “has a tremendous cost to society which in most cases will far outweigh any salary savings from laying off a higher salaried teacher,” a cost that would ultimately “mean less money for education” through the loss of tax revenue. I asked you if you had any evidence, and you didn’t have any. It’s now five posts later, and we both remain completely ignorant of the comparative impact on tax rolls of firing (1) higher numbers of lower-salaried teachers versus (2) lower numbers of higher-salaried teachers.
For example, you say that “[v]eteran teachers generally are homeowners.” But is it true that more than 50% (or 70%, or 80%, or whatever percentage “generally” translates to) of veteran teachers own their homes in New York City? I’d be pretty surprised if that were true; if it is true, then teachers are a whole lot better off than I had assumed. Maybe it is true, though. I don’t know. But neither do you. You also don’t know how many fewer “younger” teachers own their own homes than “veteran” teachers do (and not simply because you haven’t defined what constitutes a “veteran” teacher and a “younger” teacher). And so you *certainly* don’t know that getting rid of LIFO would have a net negative effect on the DOE budget (or the NYC budget, or any budget).
But who cares, right? Just say stuff, and if somebody calls you on it, tell them they don’t understand economics. Look, it’s working, you got two “likes”!
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ Norm
Ken — I just hope your next plane ride has a pilot who was not subject to the seniority layoffs. Or (hopefully not) you don’t get stuck with in inexperienced doctor.
And Flerp, do you think retraining work forces doesn’t cost money? Especially if you care about the product. But we know that ed deformers don’t really care about the product — a good well-rounded education – except for their own kids. I just read that 35% of teachers hired in the last few years are gone already. Do you think there is a cost to that? Any sane business (think Costco vs Walmart) tries to hold onto workers with experience. Worker turnover is a biggie in determining the health of a company. There was an article recently that talked about the failure of a bog national electronic chain that went belly up and blamed the driving out of the higher paid workers who were replaced by novices as the main reason. Sounds like the NYCDOE.
Mr. Flerporillo
There are costs to every decision. Actual analysis involves weighing specific costs and benefits. Ceteris paribus, an experienced worker is preferable to an inexperienced worker. Does that remain true if the experienced worker costs twice as much as the inexperienced one? Three times as much? Does it matter how much the employer can afford to pay? The devil is in the details, and the NYC Department of Education is not the U.S. Treasury Department.
Epsydoesit
help, i’m a municipality and i have a school district. there are 100 students and 4 teachers. total payroll is $300,000 this year. here’s the breakdown:
TEACHER 1: 25 years, $100,000TEACHER 2: 20 years, $80,000TEACHER 3: 15 years, $70,000 TEACHER 4 : 5 years, $50,000
the problem is that tax revenue is down and i can only spend $200,000 on payroll. if i lay off teacher 1, i lose an experienced teacher, and my student-teacher ratio rises to 33, but i would solve my budget problem. if lay off teacher 4, i still need to save another $50,000, so i will have to lay off teacher 3, too. that would give me a student-teacher ratio of 50, although i would have experienced teachers. what should i do — what’s more important, class sizes or teacher experience.
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