Inspired by The New Teacher Project's Unintended Consequences report, State Senator Jack Scott of California worked with TNTP to pass legislation that gave the state’s low-performing schools greater discretion in teacher hiring decisions .

Background: Unintended Consequences

In November 2005, The New Teacher Project (TNTP) published Unintended Consequences: The Case for Reforming the Staffing Rules in Urban Teachers Union Contracts. Based on an intensive study of five major urban school districts, the report showed that districts cannot reverse the trend of low student achievement without reforming their collectively bargained transfer and excess rules. These seniority-based staffing rules govern the movement of incumbent teachers among schools, often forcing them to hire poorly matched or poorly performing teachers. In addition, they result in the loss of new candidates, who seek jobs elsewhere after growing frustrated with hiring delays, and talented novice teachers, who are vulnerable to being “bumped” by more senior teachers who want their jobs or “excessed” by default in the event of budget cutbacks.  Because of the rigidity of these rules, urban schools cannot exert sufficient control over the most important school-based factor influencing student learning: the quality of the classroom teacher. In the end, students pay the price.

SB 1655: Taking School Staffing Reform Statewide in California

Troubled by the findings of Unintended Consequences, California State Senator Jack Scott of Pasadena asked TNTP to examine the staffing policies of the State’s major urban school districts. TNTP combined the extensive study of San Diego that it had already completed during the course of its research with a new review of the staffing rules of six other urban districts, including those of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Long Beach, Santa Ana and Oakland. From this review, TNTP concluded that California’s school staffing policies create similar teacher hiring challenges as those described in Unintended Consequences.

In response, Senator Scott worked with TNTP and the advocacy group EdVoice to create and advance Senate Bill 1655. SB 1655 is designed to ensure that local teacher transfer rules no longer interfere with the ability of schools to make timely job offers and staff their classrooms with the best possible teachers.  First, the bill states that a teacher can never be transferred to a low-performing school if the principal of that school refuses to accept the transfer. In addition, it prohibits a school district from prioritizing teachers who request to be transferred to another school over other qualified applicants after April 15, thereby freeing every school to consider all teacher candidates equally after this date and hire the best one for the job.

Initially, allies and critics both predicted an ugly partisan battle over the bill’s passage; however, SB 1655 quickly gained broad bipartisan support. To build awareness of the problem and clearly define the bill’s purpose, EdVoice and TNTP covered the bill in a special symposium, met with newspaper editorial boards and brought senior TNTP staff to testify before members of the California Legislature’s Education Committees. In response to opposition from groups concerned that the bill might negate teachers’ seniority rights, Senator Scott and EdVoice were able to reach out to legislative allies and civil rights groups to make the case for change and persuade many legislators to vote “yes.” In the end, the bill passed both the State’s Senate and Assembly Education Committees and, in a final floor vote on August 22, passed 59-12.  Shortly thereafter, Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 1655 into law.

To many, the core goal of SB 1655—giving low-performing schools a bigger say in which teachers they hire—must seem shockingly simple. After all, it is hard to imagine that any enterprise could succeed without the ability to choose the people who make it work. Yet TNTP has found that this is only one of a number of constraints under which many of our nation’s public schools must operate.

Directly inspired by the findings and recommendations of Unintended Consequences, SB 1655 served as a watershed moment in TNTP’s campaign to see the report’s recommended reforms implemented more broadly. Although the bill does not contain all of the report’s recommendations, it goes a long way toward balancing the desires of teachers with the needs of schools to staff their classrooms early and effectively, and TNTP anticipates that legislators in other states will look to it as a model for achieving their own reforms.

More immediately, SB 1655 represents a significant accomplishment because of the direct impact it can have on the quality of teachers hired by struggling schools across California, the nation’s most populous state. By giving these schools the ability to hire better teachers, it offers a better chance at success for hundreds of thousands of the State’s neediest students.

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