L.A. Agreement Sets Limits on Seniority-Based Teacher Layoffs

Mark D. Rosenbaum, the chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, smiles as news was announced last week of an agreement curbing seniority-based teacher layoffs in Los Angeles when they have a disproportionate effect on struggling schools. His organization filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District last year to stop the layoffs.

—Lawrence K. Ho/Los Angeles Times/AP

Seniority Protections Curbed

By Stephen Sawchuk

A settlement crafted last week seeking to curb the use of seniority as a factor in teacher layoffs in the Los Angeles school system could become one of the nation’s most far-reaching overhauls of the “last hired, first fired” policies common in school districts.

If approved by a judge, the settlement would shield up to 45 low-performing schools in the district from the layoff process. It also would cap cuts made in other district schools.

It comes in response to a class action against the district, filed in February by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and other groups. That lawsuit alleged that civil rights of students in three schools in impoverished neighborhoods were violated when half or more of the teachers in the schools were let go under the district’s layoff procedures, as part of a...