The world has gone Forest Gump. Stupid is as stupid does. Give a pink slip to the best of the best and keep the worst of the worst because they have seniority. This is the public sector or the world of bureaucracies. In the private world we fire the inept and keep the best because we have a motivation to succeed.

This type of situation come up in businesses everywhere, all of the time. While working at an insurance company the same thing happened to a co-worker. Employee of the year one day, got a pink slip the net. The only difference, the employer and politics. School teacher layoff = story... insurance company layoff employee = no story

Union - seniority trump over performance.

Who here doesn't have an issue where we lay off our best teacher 1st instead of the most inefficient ones 1st?

We really need to get rid of Union and their entitlement mindset. This is why we're not able to compete with every other developed (and some not so 'developed') countries out there while we spent the most $ per student.

Meanwhile Sacramento is attempting to pool millions of $ to save their basketball team.

Therein lies the rub. It should be based on performance and not seniority.

You have 2 choices public employees lay off or give backs.

ie. pay into your retirement more and all of your employment by the tax payer.

Oay for more of your health care insurance and enough of the Cadillac plans.

No more saving days off. Use it or loss it days off. sick, personal etc. and no more trading them in for Benni's

And while your at it get rid of tenure.

In NYS teachers have 3 protections. tenure. unions and the civil service system.

LAY OFFS OR GIVE BACKS. most of the private sector does not enjoy.

I have a friend who is probably the best speech therepist I've ever seen. She took the time to learn sign-language to help those students trapped in a world of total silence and act out due to frustration. She loves the austic children and they love her. She was placed in a school with a high population of deaf children. Parents have literally cried and thanked her because someone in the school system finally cared about their child and they were wanting to come to speech and beginning to talk.

Enter Union rules. A therepist who previously was in that school (few actually thought she was helpful) with higher seniority and who doesn't know sign language decided she wanted to come back because she wanted to advance into administration and felt that particular principal of that school would be the the best one to mentor her. My friend is out. The principal, students, parents, and co-teachers were crying and called the school board. Nothing can be done because of union rules. So my friend is going into private practice making twice what she was as a teacher but saddened known the less. She will probably never enter the public school sector again. Education should not be sacrificed to gain a political ideological base. More and more teacher union members in my right to work state are opting out of the union and using their dues to pay their light bill or maybe help send their children to private school where teachers can be let go due to incompetence. But those archaic rules still apply to them. Save us from ourselves.

Come on America. Get rid of all your teachers because of budget cuts! The future of your kids isn't worth it, AUSTERITY NOW!! You all would be more than happy to see the US fall further behind to China, Australia, Hungary, Sweden, Japan and even Caribbean countries in Math and Science. What a great future you all have in store for the country! UNIONS ARE BAD, CORPORATIONS ARE HERE TO SAVE US ALL!!

I believe this headline will be more accurate:

"Teacher's Union Seniority Rule results in Layoff of Teacher of the Year"

The budget cut caused a teacher to lose their job. The union seniority rules said it needed to be the "Teacher of the Year"

What's the problem?

Romney says we don't need teachers.....or police....or firemen!

Wow, the best talent gets fired!! This does not make any sense at all, LOL. You cut your dead weight and keep your talent otherwise you may never see them again!! If I was that teacher that district would never EVER see me in their hallways again.

Whoever made that decision needs to be fired and tossed in the trash.

Teacher of the year has nothing to do with being a great teacher, they just rotate through everybody until they start over again.

think about a big portion of your tax money going to pay for the presidents/chief administrators in public schools and colleges, and how much left to pay for public education for students?

it's the time to reform public education system: starting with pay cut for all presidents of public schools and colleges, and tie their pay to tuition increase: 1% tuition increase = 10% pay cut on top administrators of those schools!

trudat 6445: Congratulations! I honestly didn't believe there was anyone that thought Hitler was okay in ANYTHING he did but you managed to scare the heck out of me.

She proved better than the teachers with tenure, but the school keeps the tenured and fires the teacher of excellence.

Too much policy, regulation and unions produce these types of outcomes.

I have to laugh at those pro-union posters who are adamant that unions aren't part of this discussion, that they weren't mentioned in the article, that it was the state that fired these teachers by senority.

How completely uninformed - or driven by an agenda - you must be to make such statements! As a county government employee of 2+ years, I (grudgingly) belong to a union - that is to say, they take my dues, so I might as well be a part of it. I don't think I've ever seen my union reps, as they are in another more central location. Anyway, we just had 70 layoffs last year AND IT WAS ALL BY SENORITY in the departments that were affected (mostly Social Services.) Everything is about senority with unions. It's written in the contracts. So *IF* people have to be laid off, it's all by service time. Period. Don't delude yourself with other notions.

Unions protect their rank and file members to the death. The time is long past to abolish unions.

In the case of education, retaining or reducing teachers should always be performance based. And, for God's sakes, why don't the administrators share the pain when it comes to budget woes???

A lot of you are calling this lady the "cream of the crop" and she may well be. However, just 2 weeks ago, MSNBC reported on a "Teacher of the Year" that was accused of having a relationship with one of his students.

I guess my point it, titles don't mean squat in my book, actions do.

Please define a "bad" teacher. Based on what? Teacher "senority" is based on an assumption that the school adminstratrors are going to conduct timely, effective and objective evaluations. And that senior teachers are, therefore, "good" teachers. The system falls apart when bureacratic adminstrators and school boards fail to do their job. If a teacher does not make the grade, they can then be terminated under any teacher union contract. The civil service sytem was put into place in America as far back as the turn of the 20th century in response to politicians arbitraliy hiring and firing thier politcal cronnies and enemies and to avoid nepotism in publicly funded employemnt. Public employee employees do need protection from arbitrary whimsical employement decisions; but the adminstrators also need to do their job to get rid of "bad" teachers.

It pays to do a good job, you always get a reward!

If a teacher does not make the grade, they can then be terminated under any teacher union contract.

The problem is "making the grade" is pretty much showing up for class and breathing.

Well since Teachers fancy themselves as the equiivelant of other highly prized professionals such as Doctors Lawyers and CPAs they should have no trouble whatsoever walking into any private company office in America and demanding a 6 figure salary. You notice how teachers who are forced to leave say "But I love my job", well yeah, because it's cush and its overpaid for what they do and there are milliions of others in line trying to get that job.

And in other news, Common Sense is on life support.

This is exactly the biggest reason why most non-union people hate unions. Seniority over top performance? EVERYONE knows that's wrong, but the unions don't care. Can't wait until Scott Walker is President of the U.S. and takes these unions down for the good of the country. In the meantime, we must all fight against the evil imposed by their pure greed and disregard for our children and their future.

This is a good example of the OBAMA political doctrine. Protect the Union members that give him votes and forget about the real reason the teachers are in schools. the public union collective bargaining and benefit programs and payoffs are hurting the school systems and students across the country and from K through College. There is no logic that says you should lay off people based on time in grade. This is the way of the Teamsters, the AFL/CIO and other big contributors to Obama. This is one reason we need 'Hope and Change" in 2012.

3 months after our town downsized on teachers, our town officials got a new fleet of vehicles. I see them driving up and down, their wives borrow the car to run errands (yes, I have proof!) and the gasoline is obviously paid from our taxes. Each one of those new vehicles cost between $35,000 and $45,000 - pretty much equivalent to the salaries of the teachers that were laid off. Weird kind of priorities, aren't they? No one objected at the town hall meeting - no one wants their mailboxes blown up, or their kids charged with "possession." Way to go, America!!!