President Barack Obama wants education reform to follow health care reform and energy reform. Supporting that goal, the federal Education Department's "Race to the Top" competition will award hundreds of millions of dollars to states willing to make real changes.

Indeed, there are many areas of education ripe for change or at least rethinking, including teacher evaluation, merit pay, number of days and hours of classroom instruction, national standards and tenure.

Several stories currently in the news suggest that schools across America have an opportunity to upgrade the quality of their teaching staff, except that rigid and out-of-date tenure rules stand in the way.

Budget shortfalls in many school districts across the country are expected to result in layoffs of some teachers and support staff. Because of tenure and seniority rules, the teachers laid off will be those with the least seniority, regardless of their talents in the classroom.

Last hired-first fired is the mandated plan. Teaching skills or effectiveness do not count.

That's a shame — and a missed opportunity to improve education.

If a school district could trim its staff based on teacher effectiveness, student test results, work ethic and other measures, it would elevate the quality of the teaching staff. And it's the quality of the teacher in the classroom that is a major factor in determining the success of students.

Just as cash-strapped districts across the country face the prospect of letting a small percentage of teachers go, it's being reported that there are many qualified teachers looking for work. A recent article in the New York Times reported that some school districts with fewer than 10 openings have been flooded with thousands of applications from across the country.

In Pennsylvania, each May sees many newly minted teachers graduating from schools of education who are forced to leave the state to find work — or to work outside the classroom — because of the lack of jobs.

If tenure or seniority rules were not an obstacle, schools could remove the lowest-performing teachers and replace them with higher-quality teachers looking for work.

But that can't happen with tenure and union seniority rules in place.

Tenure was designed to protect teachers from being arbitrarily fired or otherwise harmed by favoritism. Though well-intentioned and necessary at one time, it is a barrier to removing ineffective teachers.

In the New York City and Los Angeles school systems, only about one teacher in every 1,000 has been removed from the classroom. Clearly, out of 1,000 people in any given job, there is going to be more than one who is not effective. That's true of teachers, contractors, accountants, engineers, doctors — any field.

Teacher tenure and the union pay systems that reward years of service and advanced degrees while ignoring classroom effectiveness are standing in the way of improving public education in America.

Some teachers and nearly all union officials will object to any talk of changing tenure or seniority rules. Elevating the quality of education in the classroom is given lip service by the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), but union actions speak louder than words. Jobs and dues-paying members trump education improvements.

Top-quality teachers would have nothing to fear from tenure reform or teacher evaluation programs. In fact, some reform efforts suggest the best teachers would be paid more in exchange for the ability to remove low-performing teachers.

And the union argument that all teachers — with the same level of education and equal years of experience — are equally effective is absurd. Students, parents of students, and administrators know that not all teachers are equally effective. They also know which are the best, and worst, teachers in the school.

Current budget troubles should help fuel reform. Tenure has rewarded good teachers with job security, but it also has protected bad teachers, which hurts students. A better system must be developed that protects teachers from arbitrary firings, but allows poor teachers to be replaced.

In Minnesota, a bill under consideration would have school districts review teacher performance every five years, and either renew or terminate a teacher's contract.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty argues that tenure should not be a lifetime appointment. He's right. Education is too important to allow that to continue.

And if unions fight such reasonable reforms, they will reveal their true priorities.

In New York, there are signs of hope as state education officials work with union leaders to develop a plan that would include comprehensive teacher evaluations and the ability to remove teachers rated ineffective for two consecutive years.

Those truly interested in improving public education will support tenure reform and broader efforts to upgrade the quality of the teaching staffs at schools across the country. Those more concerned with union power will object and try to block these reasonable changes.

But with the Obama administration solidly behind education reform, and millions of Americans fed up with the status quo in schools, changes will come — and students will reap the benefits.