Attempting to bypass the "last hired, first hired" rule which has forced many districts to lay off qualified teachers while holding onto mediocre ones, Lennox School District placed a number of newer staff low on the Reduction in Force List.
In order to save Moffett Elementary's dual-language program, for which many of the teachers are uniquely trained, the school board decided to extend pink slips to other teachers, some of whom have at least sixteen years working in the district.
The Union representing the instructors in this district, which sits just east of Los Angeles International Airport, is predictably up in arms about the whole thing. At least one district is taking some steps toward breaking away from the hard and fast tenure laws which protect teachers according to arbitrary and unimportant factors, like number of years or amount of education.
One teacher specifically complained because she has put in thirteen years and hold a doctorate - yet all of this graduate education has contributed more to the liberal mindset that the state has all the answers, the public school monopoly is a good thing, and that teachers' unions have the best interests of students and parents in mind. However, these suppositions simply run contrary to the truth. In no other field of graduate study has there been such decline in connection between theory and reality than in public education.
School districts should not pick and choose which departments and programs get saved from the axe, but neither should they be forced to cut away at the staff who has served less time in the district, either. Proper evaluations followed by diligent observation and mentoring would do far more in educating staff and school district personnel as to which teachers should he spared and which ones should be let go.
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