Reductions in Force: Massachusetts

Analysis of Massachusetts's policies

In Massachusetts, the factors used to determine which teachers are laid off during a reduction in force consider a teacher's tenure status. School districts may not lay off teachers with "professional teacher status" if there is a teacher "without such status" within the same certification area who could be laid off instead.

Citation

Massachusetts General Law Title XII, Chapter 71, Section 42

Recommendations for Massachusetts

Require that districts consider classroom performance as a factor in determining which teachers are laid off during reductions in force.
Massachusetts should give districts the flexibility to determine their own layoff policies, but it should do so within a framework that ensures that classroom performance is considered.   

Ensure that seniority is not the only factor used to determine which teachers are laid off.
While it is not unreasonable to lay off probationary teachers before those with tenure, doing this without also considering performance is in effect a proxy for seniority-based layoffs and risks sacrificing effective teachers while maintaining low performers. Further, because probationary teachers draw lower salaries, the state may in fact be mandating that districts dismiss a larger number of effective probationary teachers rather than a smaller group of ineffective tenured teachers to achieve the same budget reduction. 

Finally, the language in Massachusetts' law might be misinterpreted by districts to suggest that the state is encouraging seniority-based layoffs. The language directly following its reduction-in-force policy effectively permits "bumping," when a senior teachers displaces a more junior teachers from his or her teaching position.

State response to our analysis

Massachusetts was helpful in providing NCTQ with facts that enhanced this analysis. The state asserted that "Massachusetts law does not require that seniority be a factor, other than in dividing the teacher pool into those with, and those without, [tenure]."