Tell Your Legislators: Protect Teacher Diversity NOW!

The Legislature must take action to ensure that high-quality, diverse educators remain at the front of the classroom as districts face tightened budgets and teacher layoffs. Unless the status quo seniority-based layoff policy is “last in, first out” (LIFO) is improved upon in Massachusetts, early career educators of color will be at risk of losing their jobs.

Currently, teachers of color in Massachusetts are 2.1x more likely to be in the first three years of teaching than their white colleagues. Fortunately, these numbers will only increase with the passage of the critical Educator Diversity Act (EDA), which was recently favorably released by the Joint Committee on Education. Unfortunately, unless we protect the diverse educators we seek to recruit, all progress will be undone in diversifying the teaching workforce.

The EDA would make meaningful progress in increasing teacher diversity through recruitment efforts and incentives that improve teacher diversity. However, the measure fails to account for any protective measures that retain teachers during layoffs, which are beginning to proliferate throughout the Commonwealth.

We must ensure that the EDA’s progress is not harmed and that critical protections for our highest-quality, diverse educators serving our highest-needs students in hard-to-staff schools are included in the bill.

Our students–who succeed, as research shows, when having a teacher who shares their background, culture, or identity at the front of the classroom–cannot afford to be harmed by maintaining the status quo layoff policy.

We urge your support for the inclusion of these protective measures.