For the second time in two years the Pennsylvania Senate has approved a measure that would allow school districts to furlough staff for economic reasons, and would also make teachers’ performance a central component of how school districts decide who gets laid off — and the order in which they get reinstated.

The measure, which immediately drew fire from teachers groups, is similar to a bill that failed last year amid a veto threat from Gov. Tom Wolf. But this time around it bears one striking difference: it’s a change to the school code, not a bill; it would only need the approval of the House to become law. And our state representatives should vote to support it — not because it sets up a perfect system or because it will immediately fix everything that’s wrong with public education in Pennsylvania. But because doing nothing is demonstrably the worse option.

Being able to show failing educators the door is undoubtedly a good thing. But who decides which teachers are failing? State officials who can’t design a usable standardized test (RIP, Keystone Exams) but want people to trust their new and as-yet-unproven teacher evaluation system? School board members? Building or district administrators? Parents? How about the kids themselves?

Part of the problem with rooting out incompetence in the classroom is that there’s plenty of incompetence outside of it as well.

That said, the current system isn’t working. Pennsylvania is one of only six states that bases teacher layoffs off seniority alone. That’s clearly not the metric by which we want our educators chosen when it comes time to decide how to allocate school districts’ finite resources.

The top priority of every school official — from the secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Education to the newest member of every local school board — should be to staff our schools with the most talented and best-performing teachers.

It’s difficult to argue that Pennsylvania, which has seen thousands of teachers laid off through the flawed, seniority-based system since 2011, is holding true to that goal.

Coincidentally, 2011 is the same year a study by the education reform group New Teacher Project found that the students who are hurt most by seniority-based layoffs are those that live in poor communities. We have a few of those here in Butler County.

While we agree that there’s little reason to have faith in the state’s ability to administer teacher evaluations, there is absolutely no reason to believe doing nothing is a better option.