Exiting Ineffective Teachers Policy
District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) ensures that multiple factors are considered when determining which teachers are laid off during a reduction in force, including: 1) previous year's final evaluation, 2) unique skills and qualifications, 3) other contributions to the local education program, and 4) length of service.
However, this code appears to refer to local district-level policy and not state-level oversight.
Codify policies at the state level to ensure that seniority is not the only factor used to determine which teachers are laid off and that performance is considered.
It appears that the code cited here does not refer to state-level policy. The District is encouraged to codify its reduction in force requirements in state statute and/or regulation, while also adding provisions that ensure that performance is considered.
The District of Columbia 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).