Protecting Progress: Why Layoff Policies Must Safeguard Educator Diversity

Authored by National Teacher Leadership Council (NTLC) Members Cedric Jacobson, Carlotta Pope, Joseph Tadros, and Valerie Green-Thomas, and E4E Policy Fellow Dr. Shanita Rapatalo

Student Perspectives

When asked why educator diversity matters, one high school junior put it plainly: “When I see a teacher who looks like me, it makes me feel like I belong here, and like I can do what they did.” She described how having a Latina math teacher shifted her confidence, pushing her to enroll in advanced coursework she once doubted she could handle. “She didn’t lower the bar for me. She raised it.” For students, diverse educators are mentors, advocates, and living proof of possibility. Their presence shapes not only academic outcomes but also identity, aspiration, and resilience.

For students across the country, the teacher at the front of the room is the single most important in-school factor in the trajectory of their academic journey. Yet for many students, the classroom remains a place where they rarely, or never, see their own identities reflected. Educator diversity is not a luxury or a statistic; it is a fundamental requirement for student success. Decades of research confirm that when students see themselves in their teachers, classroom engagement increases, academic achievement rises, and the likelihood of college enrollment grows significantly. Despite these well-documented benefits, public schools in the United States lack teachers of color, leaving millions of students without the critical role models they need to thrive.

The needle has begun to move, but hard-won progress in diversifying the workforce now faces a precipice as federal pandemic relief funds expired, creating a “fiscal cliff” for districts nationwide. While some policymakers view potential staff reductions as a simple numbers game, layoffs must be framed as an equity issue, not just a budget challenge. Traditional “last in, first out” (LIFO) policies are fundamentally inequitable because early-career teachers are nearly 50% more likely to be educators of color than their veteran colleagues. In my experience during a reduction in force in Dallas, the vast majority of the educators we lost were teachers of color. Teachers who were out there really making a difference were let go, just because their years of service didn’t stack up. 

Relying solely on seniority would devastate the painstaking gains made in workforce representation and destabilize the very schools that need continuity the most. Fortunately, there is real momentum for change: states like Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut are beginning to rethink outdated seniority systems to prioritize student needs and protect the diverse educators who help all of our students succeed. A Boston University policy analysis found that layoffs prioritizing seniority are likely to cause disproportionate disruption to the teaching workforce in Connecticut, especially in schools serving vulnerable populations.

What Seniority-Only Layoffs Really Do

The shadow cast by potential layoffs is long, and its impact is felt in our hallways long before the final budget is signed. In my area, financial pressure has been growing for years. My colleagues are stressed about their jobs and long-term employment, even in a state that has historically treated teachers well. This emotional hardship makes it even more challenging to focus on teaching our kids. As we approach looming financial pressures and declining student enrollment, the threat to our school communities is no longer theoretical. The mere anticipation of cuts destabilizes schools; the issuance of “Reduction in Force” (RIF) notices, known as pink slips, devastates teacher morale and triggers unnecessary churn. In districts like New York City, the practice of “excessing,” where teachers are shuffled out of their schools even if they remain employed by the district, disrupts the vital continuity students need to recover from pandemic-era learning loss. When seniority is the only metric, we often lose some of our most effective teachers, including those with documented Teacher of the Year awards. Research shows that this directly leads to lower academic achievement for the students who can least afford it.

When the ax falls under LIFO policies, the targets are almost always the newest members of our professional family. Seniority-based layoffs do not just reduce staff; they systematically dismantle hard-won gains in workforce diversity. This revolving-door effect deprofessionalizes teaching, signaling to talented young educators of color that their impact and performance are secondary to their start date. Ultimately, it discourages the very talent we need to recruit and retain. – Cedric Jacobson, Boston, MA

The Data Behind the Concern

National data reveals both progress and persistent fragility in efforts to diversify the teaching profession. Today, more than half of public school students identify as people of color, yet only 20% of teachers do. In fact, 40% of public schools do not employ a single teacher of color. I’m fortunate to work in a school that bucks this trend—more than half of our educators are teachers of color. This representation ensures our students see themselves reflected in their teachers and benefit from a staff that deeply understands the nuances of their lived experiences.

While the share of teachers of color has grown from 13% of the workforce in 1988 to 20% today, representation still lags far behind the demographics of the students our schools serve. These numbers point to a structural imbalance that continues to shape students’ access to diverse perspectives and role models in classrooms across the country. Research from Brown University further underscores the stakes: all students, and particularly students of color, demonstrate stronger academic achievement and improved social-emotional outcomes when taught by teachers of color.

The data also underscores how vulnerable these gains remain. Nationally, teachers of color are nearly 50% more likely than white teachers to be in their first or second year of teaching. This concentration in early-career roles places many teachers of color at heightened risk during reductions in force that prioritize seniority alone. At the same time, survey data from the 2024 and 2025 Voices from the Classroom reports show that only about one-quarter of teachers believe the profession currently has a strong pipeline and school cultures that successfully attract and retain educators of color. While many teachers of color continue to report lower levels of job satisfaction, their morale and outlook have improved in recent years—a notable divergence from broader trends in the teaching population.

Importantly, the 2024 E4E National Teacher Survey found that 75% of teachers believe layoff decisions should be based on multiple factors, not seniority alone. Educators overwhelmingly support systems that consider seniority, performance, certification, subject area, and school context. These findings lend credibility to the call for policies that strengthen schools rather than weaken them.

Educator Diversity Is Not an Accident

Workforce diversity in our schools did not happen by chance. It reflects decades of advocacy, targeted recruitment strategies, grow-your-own programs, alternative certification pathways, and nearly $100 million in state-level investments since 2010. But this progress is fragile. Because teachers of color are disproportionately early-career and because many serve in hard-to-staff, Title I schools, seniority-based layoffs often hit the very communities where representation and stability matter most. LIFO policies unintentionally reverse diversity gains just as they begin to take root.

In hard-to-staff schools, building a diverse faculty requires trust, mentorship, and sustained effort. Watching high-impact educators lose their positions due to arbitrary start dates is devastating, not just for staff, but for students whose sense of belonging and possibility is shaped by who stands at the front of the room. Educator diversity cannot be treated as a disposable budget line; it must be protected through intentional policy choices. – Cedric Jacobson, Boston, MA

A Shared Call to Action

Protecting the stability and diversity of the educators our students deserve requires deliberate action from district leaders, state officials, union partners, and policymakers. We must move beyond rigid Last-In, First-Out (LIFO) rules and adopt layoff policies that consider multiple measures, preserve representation, and prioritize student outcomes. The evidence is clear: teacher diversity strengthens achievement, expectations, and long-term opportunity, particularly for students of color, like my students in Brooklyn, NY. For students, representation is not symbolic; it is transformative. Research shows that Black teachers’ expectations for Black students are 30% to 40% higher than those of non-Black teachers, and that having just one same-race teacher significantly increases a student’s likelihood of enrolling in college.

By modernizing outdated seniority rules and holding agencies accountable for diversity goals, we can build a teaching force that reflects the brilliance and potential of our students.

We are ready to be part of the solution. What we need now is the will to act—so that protecting educator diversity becomes not an aspiration, but a sustained commitment to equity and excellence for every child.