Firstborns, he said, tend to be fearful of losing their position and rank, so they may be extremely anxious at a time of layoffs and downsizing.
"Do you believe that in a time of layoffs, quality should be looked at instead of straight seniority, or do you agree that if your child is being assigned to an ineffective teacher you should know about it?" States that have adopted policies aligned with the StudentsFirst platform have in some cases met with public opposition.
The other — of less historical importance but of more immediate concern to NPR's management — is the implied question of how a mainstream news organization stays competitive and relevant during a time of layoffs, cutbacks and general panic about the future of the business.
While eliminating the seniority system might be the most efficacious way to keep the best teachers in times of layoffs if quality alone were used as the criterion, quality rarely governs such occasions.
For absolute proof that City Hall has not stopped striving for a better New York, even in these times of layoffs and budget cuts, one need only turn to the Giuliani administration's recently released "Management Report".
She cited Employment Practices Liability Insurance as a growing necessity for business because it covers wrongful dismissal lawsuits, which increase in times of layoffs, as well as sexual harassment and other claims.
The analysis of Census Bureau data, conducted by Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney, looks at how the seven million workers who lost jobs they had held for three years or more at the time of the layoff fared in the two years following the job loss.
You don't need to articulate the reason at the time of the layoff, but you must be prepared to do so in case of a legal challenge.
But Inspector Malcolm Fox, who makes his first appearance in THE COMPLAINTS (Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown, $24.99) as a special investigator into police corruption, seems equally well positioned to take the pulse of the city in 2009, a time of mass layoffs and spiking unemployment.
At a time of widespread layoffs and job anxiety among those still employed, can anyone but the most fortunate afford to cut their hours to give themselves time to breathe?
