Teacher Seniority: Benefit or Barrier?
by John Merrow

Recently I asked an elementary school principal in Philadelphia how he went about filling teaching vacancies. He laughed and responded, "Are you kidding? I don't fill vacancies. A few days before school starts, someone shows up with some paperwork and says, "I'm your new fourth-grade teacher. Where's my classroom?"

That "someone" is a veteran teacher who has used her seniority rights to choose among the system's vacancies. That's a frightening prospect, but it's what can happen in school systems when seniority rules in teacher assignments. True, savvy principals have learned to get around the system by writing narrow job descriptionsÜor by pulling strings at the personnel office. But why should they have to operate that way? Aren't there better ways for school leaders to use their time?"

The Philadelphia principal put it succinctly: "What other profession doesn't allow professionals to select their colleagues? How can we create a genuine learning environment when we can't control who teaches here?"

It's worth asking whether teacher seniority bears some responsibility for the criticism leveled at public education. Seniority is supposed to benefit teachers, but where seniority rules other teachers often suffer, especially new teachers. They are likely to be assigned to the least desirable schools and given the "worst" classes, as well as additional assignments nobody else wants. And it follows logically that students suffer.

Who Benefits?

When veteran teachers have seniority, who benefits? That's a question I've been pondering ever since I met Marline, a middle-aged veteran of more than 20 years in the classroom.

"This is the worst school I've ever taught in," she muttered to herself, just loud enough for me to overhear. We were watching students streaming into school on a fall morning. "How long have you taught here?" I asked. "It's my first year, she said, with some bitterness.

Because her union is fiercely protective of teachers' seniority rights, I assumed she had made the decision to teach there, and I asked her why. Her answer stunned me. "It's the closest school to my home. I wanted a short commute."

The world of teachers is one of small victories and dozens of routine indignities: constant interruptions from the public address system ("Please send Joey Brown to the office"), hall patrol, lunchroom duty, and the impossibility of taking a bathroom break when nature calls.

Over the years the treatment takes its toll. Many teachers simply leave. Thirty percent of those entering teaching leave within five yearsÜan exit rate that is far higher than in law, medicine, nursing or the ministry.

What happens to those who stay in the classroom? While thousands continue to do wonderful work, many others burn out. They stay on the job but have lost sight of why they became teachers in the first place. Seniority gives these veterans an opportunity to thumb their noses at the system, and that's how I explain Marlene's decision.

Is she Exhibit A, proving the evils of the seniority system, or is there another side? I know that for many teachers, seniority is the sacred cow. Teacher unions fought for seniority rights to protect their members from arbitrary decisions of administrators, and most veteran teachers can tell horror stories of being treated contemptuously or indifferently by principals. Does that still happen? Do principals still treat teachers as if they were simply interchangeable parts? Sadly, some of them still do.

Recently I watched a first-year teacher showing Georgia high school sophomores how to determine the area of a rectangle. She gave her students the formula and did three sample problems on the board. Each time she gave the answer in meters. No one in the class, including the teacher, knew that the answers had to be in square meters.

The school district hired her to teach physical education, for which she was trained. But her principal assigned her to also teach two sections of algebra, which she had not studied since high school. Could she have refused? 'Yes," she replied with a rueful smile, "but I wouldn't have had a job."

Seniority couldn't protect this young teacher because she was new. Ironically, it may have made her more vulnerable than the veterans, who were entitled to pick the most appealing jobs and assignments.

A Solution in Seattle

Not every veteran teacher endorses seniority. Kris Barnes, who teaches at Adams Elementary School in Seattle, remembers how the seniority system used to work there. "In years past, if we had an open position neither the principal nor the other teachers had a say as to who was going to fill that position. It just was filled."

On the one hand, she thought seniority was a benefit "I could say, 'I'm going to leave this school and I'm going to choose my next job based on my seniority."' But on the other hand: "It wasn't good for the schools. You had teachers who didn't fit in, and the school had nothing to say about it."

Today, Seattle no longer defers to seniority in teacher hiring. Progressive union leadership and the district have forged an agreement that allows teachers to be part of the hiring process. Seattle's teachers are able, for the first time in their professional lives, to choose their colleagues and build a professional team at their workplace.

Each school in Seattle has a leadership team of six teachers and the principal. The team interviews candidates and hires without regard to seniority, with the principal having a veto. Adams librarian Marlene Friend endorses the new approach "A school is a community," she says, "and in a community everybody has to have a say in what happens."

Kris Barnes concedes that the new system makes her life tougher. "If I want to change schools now, I will have to put together a resume, go out and interview, and convince some school to hire me. In the old days, I simply could have said, 'I want this school because it's in my neighborhood,' and I'd have had the job."

Most of the teachers now serving on the Adams leadership team got their jobs there through the interview process, and they feel that it is a better school because of it. Says Principal Barbara Neilsen, "We're choosing to be together, and that counts."

Philadelphia Superintendent David Hornbeck likes Seattle's approach. "I think a team of teachers at the local school and their principal ought to get to decide who's going to teach at that school," Hornbeck said, not long after arriving in Philadelphia in 1994. Unfortunately, an atmosphere of distrust pervades union-management relations there, and the response of Ted Kirsch, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, was firm. I think that what Hornbeck wants is the total right to assign people wherever he thinks they should be assigned, and this union can't accept that."

More than five years later, seniority still rules in Philadelphia, as it does in many other systems. Hornbeck continues to press for changes, and the union continues to resist. However, a new contract is being negotiated, and this time seniority rights are on the table because of new state legislation. Hornbeck maintains he's not anti-senioriy, but adds in the next breath that "seniority gets in the way."

Most teachers I've known want to be good at their jobs, but they're often working in systems that don't let that happen. Seniority offers them a measure of protection, and if I were a teacher I'd fight to hold onto it unless and until administrators demonstrate a strong commitment to teaching as a profession.