GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

The night before a vote on Mayor Bloomberg’s favored bill to change how teachers are laid off, reporters were sent a detailed list of how many teachers each school stood to lose if the union got its way. The list gave lawmakers ammunition to back the mayor’s plan and it terrified teachers who could be affected.

But when it comes to the mayor’s own layoff strategy, the city has so far left it unexamined.

The bill the mayor supports would lay off teachers not by seniority — as the current law does. Instead, it creates nine categories of teachers who would be laid off before their peers. Among them are teachers who have been given “unsatisfactory” ratings by their principals, had too many unexcused absences, or been without a full-time teaching position for over six months.

The Department of Education has not released a similar school-by-school breakdown showing what effect the mayor’s plan would have.

In response to a request for this analysis made a week ago, a DOE spokeswoman said: “We don’t have it immediately available.”

The city’s big caveat here is that the mayor’s plan would lay off the worst teachers, regardless of where they work and who they teach. But officials have yet to explain how this would change the make-up of the city’s teachers, whether it would actually affect those with more seniority (as the union alleges), and what it would do to schools’ stability. (more…)