As a few smart guys predicted fifteen months ago, the budget crisis is putting serious pressure on teacher seniority as an untouchable in education politics. Even the ACLU is making the case that ?last hired, first fired? is bad for kids, and unfair to effective teachers who just happen to be young.
But if we're honest, we'll acknowledge that the real issue goes far beyond teacher layoffs. Simply put, our education system has way too many veteran teachers who cost way too much money and provide way too little value. We can't afford them, and they've made our schools financially unsustainable. Many of them are going to have to go.
I know that sounds heartless but consider this: rigorous research is showing that, on average, teachers are just as effective after five years on the job as they are after 25 years. But the more experienced teachers cost our system a lot more. That's true for salaries (on average, lifers make $15,000-20,000 more than their mid-career colleagues), but especially true for benefits. (Typical teachers earn million-dollar-plus pensions?if they stick out the job for their whole careers. Try matching that with your 401(k).) Not that any of this is transparent in our current approach to school financing. All teachers ?cost? schools the same, or so most district budgets would have you believe.
So in a rational system?one that worked to maximize benefits for children and minimize costs to taxpayers?we'd invest most of our resources in effective mid-career teachers. We would still keep a few lifelong educators on the payroll, but we'd either expect them to be super-effective in the classroom or to play roles (such as mentoring younger teachers) that would expand their impact beyond their own classes of students. Otherwise, it would be hard to justify their higher salaries and bonanza retirement benefits, because they would be doing the same job as their more junior peers but making a lot more money.
And guess what: when we rationalize the system by giving schools control over their budgets, and charge them the real cost of their teachers, this is exactly what happens. Faced with the true price-tag for 30-year veterans, principals shy away from them. You can see that in New York City, whose weighted-student-funding system has made many older teachers less attractive to schools. (Why buy two $75,000 teachers when you can have three $50,000 teachers, especially if they are just as effective?) And you see that in the charter school sector, where leaders are clearly trying to get more bang for their bucks. Take a look at this nifty chart (find the underlying data here):
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Almost forty percent of the teachers in traditional public schools have 15 years or more teaching experience. In charter schools?which have to pay the full and true cost of these teachers?it's less than fifteen percent. It's no coincidence that the typical charter school is just as effective as the typical public school?and costs about 20 percent less.
At an Urban Institute event last week, uber-school-finance-guru Marguerite Roza explained that the school revenue picture for our public school system is bleak but the expenses picture is even bleaker. Things are going to get worse in coming years as costs far outstrip resources. In my view, it's largely the salaries and benefits of our older (and retired) teachers that are making the system so unsustainable.
So as I see it, we have a few choices. We can keep doing what we're doing, which is to lay off junior teachers, regardless of their effectiveness. That's bad educationally, and only makes the fiscal situation worse, particularly since these young teachers are subsidizing the healthcare and retirement costs of their older colleagues. Second, we can find a way to remove expensive, senior teachers from the payroll, probably through some sort of buyout. (Michigan is trying to engineer such an approach right now.) Or third, we can compress the salary schedule so that 5-year veterans and 25-year veterans get paid about the same, since they produce about the same results. (Jacob Vigdor explains how that would work in this Education Next article.) Trimming retirement benefits?so they are more in line with what most Americans get these days?would help too.
The third approach is my favorite, though it's also the most politically perilous. Teachers unions exist to squelch precisely this type of reform, and to protect their members' salaries and benefits at every turn. (This is particularly true since these unions are generally run by older teachers.) Fine. Here's a compromise that would be a step in the right direction: instead of laying off teachers when times are tough, let's ask veteran teachers for some wage and benefits concessions. (Most have enjoyed dramatic pay raises over the past decade.) If their hearts truly go out to their younger, about-to-be-fired colleagues, they will embrace such a move with open arms. Randi Weingarten, Dennis Van Roekel, deal?
-Mike Petrilli
