Beat Back Attack on Fairness

Urge Lawmakers to Defeat Huff Bill to Undermine Seniority Protections

Your help is urgently needed to defeat a CTA-opposed bill that would undercut seniority protections and deprive students of more experienced teachers.SB 355, by Sen. Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar), would virtually eliminate seniority as a consideration when layoffs are required and institute a test-driven system the author calls "performance-based" layoffs.

The bill is slated to come before the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, April 13.

It's vital that all members of the committee are contacted and urged to vote against SB 355 (Huff).

Background:

Sen. Huff is using the current fiscal emergency affecting public education as a launching pad for an attack on a basic element of employee rights - seniority. Overwhelming research shows that teacher quality improves over time and that students benefit. Unfortunately, this bill opens the door to favoritism and/or retaliation against teachers for exercising their free speech or contractual rights.

Key Points:

·         Seniority provisions in layoff procedures ensure that students will have more experienced teachers in the classroom.

·         Permitting evaluations to be the determining factor for layoffs, rather than seniority, invites age discrimination.  It would be far too easy to evaluate older teachers out of the workforce.  This is already a problem as it is assumed that older teachers cannot "keep up" or be flexible enough to adapt to the latest education fads. Too often older teachers are harassed into retirement with a series of unfairly critical evaluations.

·         The real problem in our schools is not seniority protections; it's the chronic underfunding that has provoked a fiscal crisis and is threatening our students' education.

Here's what you can do to help!

Call all members of the Senate Education Committee at their district and Capitol offices.Let them know why seniority is important to your students. Remind them that students benefit from teacher experience.  Also let them know that SB 355's provisions would foster discrimination, including age and wage discrimination.

After you have made your two calls, close the loop by e-mailing lfeldman@cta.org to let us know: 

1) Who did you meet with or reach by phone or e-mail? 

2) What was the response?  Will the lawmaker commit to voting against the bill?

For more information, contact Legislative Advocate Seth Bramble or GR Communications Consultant Len Feldman at 916.325.1500.

Urge Members of Senate Education to Defeat SB 355 (Huff)

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