As in most large cities, enrollment in public schools has declined noticeably since the pandemic. There are a variety of reasons for this, including families either fleeing areas with high crime rates or moving their children into private schools. Boston is no exception and the obvious result has been a need to consolidate some services and reduce staffing. This has led to something of a civil war breaking out between various elements in the teachers’ unions. Some progressive advocates are endorsing a measure that would prioritize diversity in terms of which teachers get the boot and which ones are kept on staff. But in Boston, that would mean that many newer teachers of color would be kept while predominantly white teachers with more seniority would be told to clean out their offices. And most of them are having none of it. (Boston Globe)

Currently, state law generally requires teachers without professional status to be laid off first, albeit with some exceptions, including job performance.

The state’s largest teachers unions are backing a different bill that focuses on expanding and creating initiatives to increase the diversity of the educator workforce and wouldn’t touch state law governing layoffs.

The legislation changing seniority rules is one of the most significant attempts in more than a decade to weaken seniority protections for teachers.

The conversation breaks down along these lines:

Activists: We need more diversity!

Unions: Yes! Diversity now!

Activists: This means some people with more tenure will need to be let go so more teachers of color can be retained.

Unions: Um… hold the phone there, chief…

This should have been predictable. Despite its progressive reputation, Boston isn’t a particularly diverse city, with whites outnumbering Black people by a more than two to one ratio. And this city continues to deal with historic trends of racism. But as the Globe points out, the disparity is particularly prominent in the schools, where the vast majority of teachers are white.

That means that any effort to undermine the traditional norms in favor of more diversity was going to run into a wall of opposition. Unlike almost any other profession in the country, public school teachers (and their unions) cling to the tenure system with an iron grip. This has almost certainly led to many of the problems we see in public schools because teachers with tenure and seniority wind up being kept around even if they exhibit poor performance or, in some cases, criminal behavior. Meanwhile, newer teachers who may be quite talented are the first out the door when cuts have to be made.

The debate in Boston obviously highlights the hypocrisy of the teachers’ unions, though we already knew that. But it also shines a spotlight on massive problems in the current diversity agenda and the war on merit. Some of those newer teachers may not be the best and the brightest regardless of the melanin content of their skin and they certainly have less experience. Others may be natural prodigies. Similarly, the (primarily white) tenured teachers have more experience and some of them may be quite adept while others are essentially dead wood hanging around only because of their tenure status.

Here’s a novel idea that Boston might consider. How about conducting a thorough review of all of the teachers regardless of tenure, race, or any other demographic? See which ones received the best performance reviews, produced the highest grade point averages and registered the fewest violations of any type. Then just keep the top performers the longest and give pink slips to the ones at the bottom of the list first.

Naw… that would never work, right? That’s a shame, however. “Diversity” doesn’t say a single thing about actual talent or performance. But neither does tenure. Perhaps the entire country could learn a thing or two from the current debate in Boston.