This article combines original interviews, secondary policy analysis, and non-ideal theory to determine the 'least unjust' approach to budget-driven 'Reduction in Force' teacher firings in Los Angeles. Building from the a priori claim that schools should serve children's interests, this article addresses the following questions: To whom is justice owed in this case? What does justice demand for each set of claimants? How should conflicts be resolved? The authors conclude that the least unjust way to fire teachers in response to budgetary constraints is to use a holistic assessment combining student evaluations, administrative evaluations, valueadded measures, and seniority, modified by school stability considerations. Unexpectedly, justice toward students and justice toward teachers turn out to be substantially coextensive when determining budget-driven teacher layoffs. Teachers and students are mutual allies, not antagonistic claimants. Furthermore, to the extent that teachers' and students' justice claims are not aligned, this lack of alignment likely reveals not an intrinsic conflict, but a policy failure that is itself borne of prior injustice.

Meaningful teacher–student relationships are linked to a range of positive student outcomes. However, there is limited research on how teacher education programs attempt to prepare teachers to form relationships with students. This article employs comparative case methodology to explore how two different teacher residency programs—No Excuses Teacher Residency and Progressive Teacher Residency—attempt to prepare their teacher residents to form meaningful relationships with students. Drawing on theoretical work by Martin Buber and Paulo Freire, this article finds two very different approaches to teacher–student relationships: Instrumental and Reciprocal. It concludes by discussing the implications of each.

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As the final bell chimed on the last day of school in June of 2012, students flooded out the front gates of Skyline High School. 1 But while the students celebrated the beginning of summer, the mood among the staff was bittersweet. For many of the teachers, this was their last day working at Skyline, a place they had cultivated and loved since it opened in 2007. Thanks to district-wide Reduction in Force (RIF) layoffs, prompted by recession-driven budget cuts rather than student or school needs, this large comprehensive high school in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) would become a very different place next year. Twenty teachers -18 percent of the total faculty -were being laid off. Because this was the fourth year of RIF layoffs in the school's five years of existence, these cuts reached deep. Skyline's "RIF'd" teachers had an average of four years of teaching experience in the district. Half had helped to found the school; others served as Department Chairs and members of School Site Council.