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Every teacher hired in the last five years. your reaction? >> i mean, this is a very real and very, very scary threat, right? not just to teachers but more importantly to the 1.1 million students that are -- are in our school. >> the young teachers would be the ones to go, right? >> absolutely. the system we have in place is last in, first out. the most recent hires are the first to be fired and that gives no consideration to a teacher's effectiveness in the classroom. their ability to improve student achievement. it's solely based on time in classroom which is not best for the kids. >> couple...

Endorsing your approach. >> we have a real opportunity here. the mayer is focusing now on abolishing tenure, last in, first out. the kinds of schools that tom was describing, these are people who are entrepreneurs, teachers who are on fire about teaching. there are so many people who want to do the right thing for kids. but we have to have laws that allow educators to be entrepreneurs, that allow for the freedom. here's what allows for that freedom and entrepreneurial energy. it's one word, accountability. when you have accountability, you can then give people the freedom to do what all these ...

In those classrooms and i don't think any parent anywhere in the city should be forced to make that decision. >> now, you were doing this under the power you have in a new contract. this is part of a big national debate. prior, most teachers' contracts have seniority. the more senior teachers get to stay and the more junior get the hook. explain this and why you think it is important as this debate goes across the country. >> right now there is a time of contracting budgets all across the nation and the part of the problem is that when you have to cut budgets if you have to do layoffs normally...

System has which incidentally still is the greatest big city public school in the country. our graduation rates with up 25% we're the poster child for how you fix a school system. rubber rooms are a nice story. it will go down to maybe 10 or $15 million but the big problem is getting 1.1 million kids educated. >> you mentioned you have a lot of challenges and one of them would be to make cuts for the budget. there may be jobs done away with whether we like it or not. how do you we will with last hired, first fired within the spectrum of all the different pressures on your budget? >> this is a ...

Really important, andrea, we may have to lay off teachers this year because of the budget gap in the governor's budget and if we had to do that, that would have a very unfortunate effect on our school system. >> how severely are you affected by the dysfunction in albany? you have a real political crisis on all sides, on all fronts in albany. >> we're supposed to have a budget at the end of the month and right now there's no indication that that's going to come together and so how you plan on this, whether you have to do layoffs, on i've testified before, while all of us would rather never lay ...