D.C. Public Schools and New York City Public Schools have a lot in common – both are large, expensive, chronically low-performing systems that have recently come into seasons of serious reform under mayoral control. Both are also currently wrapped up in brewing controversies over excessed teachers, and it’s not pretty in either town.

Basically, an excessed teacher is a teacher within a district but without a job, and due to the upcoming closings of 23 schools, and the restructuring of 27 others, D.C.’s about to get a lot of them. Last week, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee finalized an agreement with Washington Teachers’ Union president George Parker that would classify teachers from the 23 closing schools as “excessed,” which under the teachers’ contract means they can involuntarily be placed at any school in the system, but are guaranteed a job and are given preference in filling vacancies.

All things considered, it’s not a bad deal for the teachers, but some parents are saying that it’s unfair that teachers won’t automatically be transferred to the same new schools that their students will go, despite the impossible logistics of such a plan, and some union officials are upset that Parker went along with the agreement because it denies seniority to older teachers in filling vacancies. The ever-outraged WTU vice-president Nathan Saunders said to the Post that Parker, “has got to be stopped; he’s giving away the store.”