Sam Drysdale
State House News Service

A bill to prioritize high-performing and bilingual teachers over seniority during layoffs ran into some early resistance during a hearing Tuesday.

The proposal, backed by national nonprofit Educators for Excellence, aims to revise how districts decide which teachers get laid off when budgets shrink or enrollment drops. State Senator Jason Lewis (D-Winchester), chairman of the Massachusetts Senate's Education Committee, questioned whether it could undermine traditional tenure protections.

Under the proposal, instead of relying mainly on seniority, districts would be allowed to pilot a program to keep the teachers who are better qualified and have stronger performance ratings, as long as they hold the right certifications. Seniority could be used only as a last-resort tie-breaker when two teachers are otherwise equally qualified.

The bill (S.327 /H.711) defines "better qualified" teachers as those with the mandated certifications who have higher overall performance ratings, with student needs and criteria specific to each district's collective bargaining agreement also taken into account. 

The bill also would offer extra layoff protection to certain teachers even if they don’t yet have professional teacher status. Those include teachers working in high-needs or hard-to-staff schools, graduates of local "grow-your-own" programs, educators named "Teachers of the Year," and those fluent in languages spoken by many students in the district. 

Cedric Jacobson, a member of Educators for Excellence, said current rules, which prioritize seniority, often force districts to lay off newer, high-performing teachers from underrepresented backgrounds.

"This undermines our ability to retain the highly qualified and diverse educators essential for student success,” Jacobson, a science teacher at Brooke High School, a public charter school in the Mattapan section of Boston, told the committee.

He noted that 10 percent of Massachusetts teachers are people of color, while 45 percent of students in the state are people of color.

Jacobson highlighted research showing the impact of teacher diversity on student achievement.

"Black students who have had even one black teacher are significantly more likely to enroll in college," he said. "Representation dramatically impacts outcomes ... And statewide, these young, diverse teachers are often the first to go when money is tight."

De'Shawn Washington, a fourth-grade inclusion teacher at Maria Hastings Elementary School in Lexington, said the bill would allow districts to retain educators who have a strong impact on student learning. 

"Policies on seniority disproportionately affect excellent early-career educators working in high-need schools and communities," Washington said. "This undermines student achievement, it erodes progress towards a more representative teaching force."

Lisa Lazare, executive director of Educators for Excellence, said Massachusetts is one of only six states that require early-career teachers to be let go first when layoffs occur. 

"This inelegant approach disproportionately harms our newest educators, those we've worked hard to recruit because they better reflect the cultural, linguistic and needs-based backgrounds of the students they serve," she said.

Lazar acknowledged that they have only had limited discussions with teachers unions. The largest is the Massachusetts Teachers Association, followed by American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts.

"We haven’t had a really strong conversation with the Massachusetts Teachers Association," she said. "But we were able to have some beginning conversations with the AFT … they named that this is an issue, but they’re not necessarily sure what their solutions would be."

Asked about the bill, Massachusetts Teachers Association president Max Page said the bill would "not achieve" the goals to attract "more educators in general, and more educators of color in particular."

"We want to increase the diversity of the educator workforce by making teacher-preparation programs more accessible and affordable and increasing pathways for teacher licensure, which are captured in the Educator Diversity Act and Tomorrow’s Teachers Scholarship Program, initiatives that the MTA played a leadership role in winning in the Legislature," Page said. 

The Educator Diversity Act was passed last year, encompassed in a larger bill. It creates alternative pathways to educator certifications, meant to lower barriers for applicants such as those who don't speak English as a first language or who don't have master's degrees.

Page continued, "Stripping away a set of workers' rights leaves all educators — including educators of color — vulnerable to reductions in force carried out in arbitrary or unfair ways."

Lewis asked Lazare about whether the bill would dismantle the state's tenure system.

"If we were to pass a law like this, then what would it actually mean for a teacher to have tenure in that case? If, you know, they could lose their job regardless of their professional teacher status," Lewis asked.

Lazare responded that the bill is not intended to eliminate seniority or tenure protections on a year-to-year basis. 

"This is in extreme moments when there’s a reduction in force triggered by budgetary and fiscal issues," she said. "It adds measures of quality on top of seniority to support our students."

Lewis emphasized shared goals with the bill’s supporters but urged further collaboration. 

"What I would say is, you know what the concerns are around this," he said.

Lewis continued, "We share the exact same goals, right? We are completely 100 percent in agreement there. ... We want to continue to make this a priority, regardless of what happens with this particular proposal. … Bring us additional feedback ideas around ways to continue to diversify the educator workforce."

If approved, the bill would take effect in 2026 and run through 2032. During that period, the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education would evaluate whether the measure increased the number of teachers of color in Massachusetts schools and submit a report to the Legislature.