N.C. District Lets Go of Veteran Teachers, But Keeps TFA Hires

Performance Trumps Seniority in Officials' Decisions

Faced with a yawning budget gap, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board last week approved plans to let go of hundreds of teachers, basing that decision on the teachers’ low performance on evaluations, rather than on their seniority.

Even more controversially, the 134,000-student North Carolina district granted an exemption to teachers hired through the Teach For America recruiting program who meet teaching standards over more-senior teachers, and it is poised to hire more TFA alumni.

Those decisions are raising the ire of local and national teachers’ groups and have reopened philosophical debates about the merits of the selective TFA program, which places top graduates in some of the...