Gov. Wolf Vetoes Teacher Layoff Legislation

Should performance or seniority be the key factor when school districts are forced to make teacher layoffs?

That’s at the crux of the debate in Harrisburg this week.

Governor Tom Wolf on Wednesday vetoed a bill that would have ended seniority-based layoffs with a system based on performance. The Protecting Excellent Teachers Act could resurface as budget negotiations continue, however, the Inquirer reports.

Wolf said he vetoed the Protecting Excellent Teachers Act because it relies heavily on a single score from a teacher evaluation system, as opposed to using the entire method of evaluation.

“At a time when there is bipartisan agreement that we need to reduce our reliance on high-stakes testing, we should not use high-stake test scores as the benchmark for teacher quality. The teacher evaluation system was created in 2012 to evaluate teachers on multiple measures of student success. As designed, teachers who did not achieve satisfactory scores across the multiple measures would lose any acquired protection from seniority,” he said in a statement following the veto.

He said using the evaluation process, teachers who do not improve should no longer be in the classroom.

“I am committed to greater accountability in our schools, but we should be working together to create a wide-ranging system that focuses on real, proven strategies to prepare our students and measure teacher effectiveness. I believe this bill does not address the broader issues at play with our evaluation and testing systems,” Wolf said.

The bill was supported by the state school boards association but opposed by the Pennsylvania Education Association, the state's largest teacher's union.

"Gov. Wolf did the right thing for Pennsylvania’s schools, students, and educators by vetoing this bill," said Pennsylvania Education Association President Jerry Oleksiak. "Legislators need to focus on funding our schools, instead of trying to punish teachers for years of hard work and well-earned experience in the classroom."

But Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman called the legislation “common sense.”

“If the governor is genuinely concerned about providing our children with quality public education, then he should join us in moving to protect excellent teachers. It’s in the best interest of our students,” Corman said.

Bill supporters were quick to react to Wolf’s veto of the measure.

“It’s disgraceful that Gov. Wolf has sided with teachers’ unions instead of with students and teachers,” said James Paul, senior policy analyst with the Commonwealth Foundation, a Pennsylvania free market think-tank. “And it’s ridiculous that a governor who rhetorically champions ‘schools that teach’ would tolerate a seniority-based system that punishes young, effective teachers who excel in the classroom but simply haven’t racked up as much service time.”

What do you think? Should layoffs be based solely on performance?