Educators divided on doing away with seniority

Lynda Ihlan thinks she is a good teacher.

But like a lot of Minnesota educators, she worries about holding on to her job. The threat, Ihlan believes, is legislation approved by the state House of Representatives this week that upends the current seniority-based system directing teacher layoffs and replaces it with one that also considers performance and licensure.

"When you go to a surgeon, do you want one with one year experience or 15 years experience?" said Ihlan, a Farmington middle school science teacher with 14 years of experience under her belt. "We learn as we go. Just like any other profession, teachers get better with time."

Still, Ihlan, who opposes the bill, acknowledges that sometimes good teachers get laid off under the current seniority-based system -- one of the chief complaints among the legislation's supporters.

The controversial bill stands to be a divisive issue for Minnesota teachers, already under pressure to boost student achievement and help close the state's nagging achievement gap. Supporters say that's why lawmakers must act with urgency and approve the plan.

"We have students who are waiting for an answer as to why they're not learning at the level they should be," said Rep. Sondra Erickson, R-Princeton, chairwoman of the Education Reform Ccommittee.

Minnesota is one of about a dozen states that makes seniority the only factor in layoffs. If the proposed legislation becomes law, the state would join about 18 others that have moved toward performance-based decisions in the past two years.

By no surprise, the bill is drawing significant opposition from the state teachers' unions, which say such a change would encourage districts to lay off older, more highly paid teachers in an effort to save money.

They also say the move is unnecessary, pointing to the fact that many districts have contracts with their teachers in which layoffs aren't dictated solely by seniority.

"I think this is a bad way to solve a problem that doesn't exist," said LeMoyne Corgard, an elementary physical education teacher in the Anoka-Hennepin school district who's taught for 34 years.

What's not in debate is the fact that a growing number of Minnesota schools are laying off teachers and staff members to grapple with declining enrollment, shrinking property tax bases and unfunded mandates.

Jeanne Fimmen expects to get a pink slip next week.

She called the current law "archaic."

"Even if I wasn't facing this situation, I would still believe that these kinds of decisions should be based on what's best for kids," she said. "That's not how it works now and it needs to change. It's not fair."

Complications

Erin Gavin, an eighth-grade reading teacher at Brooklyn Center, said she's seen good teachers lose their jobs because of the current system. But that doesn't mean that ineffective teachers always find shelter within seniority, she said.

Still, she said, changes are needed.

Identifying good teachers and weeding out the bad ones has been the crux of debate unfolding within Minnesota education circles for years.

Last year, the National Council on Teacher Quality gave Minnesota an "F" for its ineffectiveness in dismissing poor-performing teachers, in part because of the seniority-only law.

And the state lost out on the first round of federal Race to the Top funds because of its failure to address ineffective teaching, among other factors.

The state is currently in the midst of developing its first formal teacher evaluation process. A task force is working out the details of that plan, including how to connect student and teacher performance. Petersen's bill would go into effect in 2015, one year after that process is expected to be in place.

Legislation opponents have argued that to help Minnesota students legislators should focus on finding a way to sustainably fund schools.

Kim McGuire • 612-673-4469