There have been a number of
articles lately about the movement to eliminate seniority in education layoff policies. This idea has been primarily focused on K-12 for now, but with higher education funding equally at risk it may not be long before it comes to higher ed. For those out of the loop in this, traditionally, the most recent faculty hires are the first to get pink slips when funding gets tight. When hiring back, those with seniority are the first brought back in. Education administrators and politicians see the weaknesses of this system and some want to eliminate seniority rules.
Those in favor of eliminating seniority have argued that seniority rules ignore efforts to make teachers accountable for their student's grades. Some have gone so far as to point out that newer teachers cost less, so getting rid of senior teachers would save money.
My concern with regard to the "accountability" issue continues to be that the easiest way for a faculty member to give the perception of performance is to inflate grades and teach the test, and only the test. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the tests we currently give don't measure the ability to think or come up with new ideas. They are not about long term education. If the point of education is to build for the future our current testing regime fails miserably. Having little or no job security will mean less innovation and less education that last a lifetime, since faculty can't afford to have poor evaluations. It's like those banks who were only looking at this quarter's results and not thinking about the long term consequences of their actions. How did that work out for us?
For those looking only at the bottom line, I would point out that this can be seen as age discrimination under a euphemism. The court cost could wipe out much of the savings.
Another "bottom line" issue is that tenure and seniority have a monetary value. Eliminating these will require that you move that monetary value into the paycheck, again wiping out the savings. Not being a stable career, will people really be interested in going into teaching? If not, we will have to entice them with something, like perhaps money.
Opposing elimination of seniority are those who believe that just because someone has grey hair does not mean that they are not effective teachers. They also worry that personal grudges will influence who gets the axe.
Having a few grey hairs myself, I am sympathetic to those fearing that they will be let go in those years when they are "too old" for professional positions outside teaching. Having spent 20 years as a teacher will have some arguing that their background and skills in teaching "Watership Down" to 13 year olds don't really translate into anything but Walmart greeter positions. This will be all the more reason to teach the test and give high grades.
Certainly there is deadwood in education. We should have better means to remove the accumulating deadwood before the wildfire of poor performance burns down the entire school. But, again, we need a better means of measuring performance than those we have now. The deadwood is teaching the test and giving good grades. They know how to game the system.
On the personal grudge issue, many times I have seen this payout, where sexual orientation, differing ideas about pedagogy, or a perception of an incorrect balance between teaching and scholarly activity were the underlying issues behind evaluations of poor faculty performance. Yes, I know this happens in the non-academic world, but in our public entities our society has held itself to a higher standard. As a community we tend to believe that if our public sector does not act fairly in its employment practice, how can we be assured that it will safeguard activities in the private sector.
In conclusion, there are pros and cons to seniority. Just because we are in hard economic times today we should not rush into actions that will be counter productive to our longterm best interest. There is a middle ground here and we must strive for that.
T.S. Hall
