Exiting Ineffective Teachers Policy
Arizona ensures that seniority and tenure status are not the sole factors used by districts to determine which teachers are laid off during reductions in force. However, the state does not require that teacher performance be among the considered factors.
Require that districts consider classroom performance as a factor in determining which teachers are laid off during reductions in force.
Arizona can still leave districts flexibility in determining layoff policies, but it should do so within a framework that ensures that classroom performance is considered.
Arizona recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.
See National Council on Teacher Quality, "Teacher Layoffs: Rethinking 'Last Hired, First-Fired' Policies." (2010); The New Teacher Project, The Case Against Quality-Blind Teacher Layoffs (2011); Boyd, Donald; Lankford, Hamilton; Loeb, Susanna; and Wyckoff, James, "Teacher Layoffs: An Empirical Illustration of Seniority v. Measures of Effectiveness" The Urban Institute, CALDER (2010); Goldhaber, Dan and Theobold, Roddy, "Assessing the Determinants and Implications of Teacher Layoffs." Center for Education Data & Research, University of Washington-Bothell (2010); Sepe, Christina and Roza, Marguerite, "The Disproportionate Impact of Seniority-Based Layoffs on Poor, Minority Students." Center on Reinventing Public Education (2010).