The EdVocate West

Another Day in Education Reform

April 19, 2010 at 10:03 pm arunramanathan Leave a comment

Never a dull moment here in California – even when budget woes seem to dominate every second. Tomorrow the Governor will be at Markham Middle School to talk about the devastating impact that seniority based layoffs have had on this high need, high poverty school in LAUSD. Markham is one of the schools where the turnover in staff over the last few years has been so severe that the ACLU has filed a lawsuit.

First, let’s get something straight. I hate layoffs. California needs to fix our state budget to prevent these boom and bust cycles. Our leaders must also stop forcing education to take a disproportionate share of the budget cuts. Take a look at the recent LAO report on the Governor’s budget proposal and you’ll see that K-12 education got killed over the last three years. But let’s be clear. California voters were given a chance last year in a series of initiatives to support education and offset these budget cuts. They didn’t. So, there’s plenty of blame to go around.

All of this blame falls on adults.  Almost of the pain, however, seems to fall on the kids. Seniority-based layoffs are just one symptom of this longstanding equation in California. This is a mechanism that was created and exists to benefit a certain set of adults in our education system. I haven’t heard a single supporter of this seniority explain how it benefits students. And I haven’t heard anyone deny that it doesn’t disproportionately impact the students who need teacher stability and quality the most. That is why this law has to change.

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