Ben Mitchell
Director of Advocacy & Policy, Foundation for Tacoma Students
At the Foundation for Tacoma Students, we are committed to our community goal: ensuring that by 2030, 70% of high school graduates earn a college degree, technical certificate, or secure good-earning wage employment opportunity within six years of graduation. Achieving this requires investing in a crucial element: a strong and diverse teacher workforce. Just as in any profession, the experience, skills, and backgrounds of educators significantly influence how effectively they support student success. A particularly important factor is building a teaching workforce that reflects the diversity of our student population, making it essential to prioritize attracting more educators of color.
What We Know About Teacher Impact
Research consistently shows that teachers are the single most influential in-school factor in a student’s academic success, with an impact that surpasses other school-related factors by two to three times. This underscores why teacher effectiveness has been a longstanding priority in education policy. But it’s complicated territory. Some argue for performance-based compensation, while others emphasize improving working conditions to attract and retain talent.
The evidence suggests we actually need both. Washington D.C. adopted such a model over a decade ago, implementing major changes combining three key elements:
- Higher base pay for all teachers.
- Bonus pay for the highest-rated teachers.
- Performance accountability measures
The results were compelling: notable growth in 4th-grade math and reading scores, strong 8th-grade math gains, and concentrated improvements for Black students. This reinforces the crucial role teachers play, especially when viewed through an equity lens.
Why The Diversity Gap Matters
An important dimension of educator effectiveness is racial diversity. Research shows that all students benefit academically and socially from having teachers of color. When Black, Latino and Asian students have same-race teachers, they’re less likely to face suspension. Black students with Black teachers are more likely to be recommended for advanced programs and to consider college.
However, most states, including Washington, face a significant racial gap between the diversity of students and teachers. That’s why our current situation is so concerning. Nationally, 55% of students are people of color, yet only 22% of teachers and 23% of principals share that background. In Washington, our gap is even larger at 37 percentage points. And while we’re making some progress in diversifying our teaching force, our student population is diversifying faster, meaning the gap is actually growing.
Policy experts agree on several strategies to help bridge this gap:
- Investing in recruitment efforts.
- Reducing certification barriers and providing alternative pathways.
- Improving school practices, professional development, and other benefits to recruit and retain teachers of color.
While Washington has taken steps in the right direction, we have to accelerate our progress in order to close the teacher-student racial gap and achieve our 2030 goal.
The Last-In, First-Out Dilemma
There’s growing concern about “last-in, first-out” layoff policies, where newer teachers are the first to lose their jobs during budget cuts. These policies are particularly relevant in Washington state, where school districts have the authority to use seniority as the sole criterion for layoff decisions – despite some states prohibiting this practice.
While last-in, first-out policies weren’t designed to impede workforce diversity, research demonstrates they disproportionately impact teachers of color. Beyond the immediate effect of job losses, these policies may discourage prospective teachers of color from entering the profession, as they face greater job insecurity regardless of their performance or contributions to their school communities.
Several factors could increase the risk of budget-induced teacher layoffs in Washington:
- Projected state revenue shortfalls: Overly optimistic revenue assumptions have led to budget commitments that may now face cuts due to lower-than-expected state revenues.
- Declining public school enrollment: Enrollment has dropped by about 47,000 students since 2019, putting pressure on school budgets.
- Expiration of federal relief funds: Pandemic-era federal funding is running out, potentially leading to budget gaps where districts relied on those funds for ongoing expenses.
The logical policy solution would be to prohibit last-in, first-out policies and instead base layoff decisions on factors beyond just seniority. While some states and districts have adopted such measures, many only make incremental changes that don’t really address the core issue.
One reason for this is that there are valid arguments in its favor. Experienced teachers are generally linked to better student outcomes, so prioritizing seniority can be seen as beneficial. Additionally, critics argue that removing seniority as the primary basis for layoffs requires first building a comprehensive teacher evaluation system that enables high-stakes decisions based on teacher quality metrics. Implementing these changes is complex and often contentious, particularly in blue states where we tend to have strong collective bargaining requirements.
As a result, reform efforts often result in compromise solutions. For example, Oregon passed a 2021 law that keeps last-in, first-out in place but exempts teachers with cultural and linguistic expertise. Similarly, a new teacher contract in Minneapolis states that teachers who are members of “populations underrepresented among licensed teachers in the district” may be exempt from district-wide layoffs outside of seniority order, deviating from the traditional “last-in, first-out” system.
Staying Focused on What Matters
But here’s where we need to be careful about our focus. While modifying last-in, first-out policies might seem like a win, there is not strong evidence that small changes like those in Oregon and Minneapolis will actually narrow the racial gap between teachers and students. These are relatively minor solutions compared to what we know really works.
This reflects a broader issue within the education advocacy community, where we sometimes invest time in less impactful measures simply because they seem attainable, justifying it with the attitude that “something is better than nothing.” And while there is truth to that, this can cause us to lose sight of pursuing more substantial and still viable policies. Every action has an opportunity cost, and devoting energy to surface-level policies can take away from efforts that could push more effective, yet stalled, policies forward if approached with targeted advocacy.
If we’re serious about reaching our 2030 goal, we need to focus on evidence-based policies that we already know works:
- Higher base pay with strategic incentives for high-performing teachers and accountability for those under-performing.
- Serious investment in recruitment and pipeline programs.
- Improved certification processes that maintain quality while removing unnecessary barriers
- Better professional development and support systems
These policy changes are politically challenging, expensive, and time-consuming to implement. But that’s the nature of policy work. Our role as advocates isn’t to seek easy wins or spread ourselves thin across countless initiatives. Instead, we must carefully analyze tradeoffs, engage in substantive policy debates, and maintain laser focus on our priorities.
At FFTS, we’re just as challenged by this as any organization. It’s tempting to pursue smaller wins that seem more achievable in the short term. But if we want to see 70% of our students achieving post-secondary success by 2030, we need to keep our focus on the most impactful policies, even when they’re harder to achieve. Our students deserve nothing less.
The policy landscape around teacher diversity demonstrates this tension. We can chase modifications to last-in, first-out policies that might help at the margins, or we can push for the comprehensive changes that research shows will actually move us toward our goals. The choice seems clear – but making it requires us to prioritize impact over winnability.
