Nearly everyone involved in the enterprise of schooling understands the profound importance of building and sustaining a high-quality team of teachers. Moreover, the research is clear: the single most important school-based determinant of student achievement is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. Yet, urban schools must often staff their classrooms with little or no attention to quality or fit because of the staffing rules in their teachers union contracts. This report focuses on the contractual staffing rules governing "voluntary transfers" and "excessed teachers." Voluntary transfers are incumbent teachers who want to move between schools in a district, while excessed teachers are those cut from a specific school, often in response to declines in budget or student enrollment. Appended are: (1) How the Five Studied Districts Place Voluntary Transfers and Excessed Teachers; (2) What Happens in Your District: A Primer; and (3) Methodology. (Contains 43 endnotes.)