Reductions in Force: Florida

Exiting Ineffective Teachers Policy

Goal

The state should require that its school districts consider classroom performance as a factor in determining which teachers are laid off when a reduction in force is necessary.

Best Practice
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2011). Reductions in Force: Florida results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/FL-Reductions-in-Force-10

Analysis of Florida's policies

In Florida, new legislation requires that teacher performance be a factor in determining which teachers are laid off during a reduction in force. In addition, the state ensures that seniority is not the sole factor in determining which teachers are laid off. Employees with the lowest performance evaluations are the first to be released, and school districts "may not prioritize retention of employees based upon seniority."

Citation

Recommendations for Florida

State response to our analysis

Florida recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis.

Research rationale

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).