30,000 Los Angeles public school teachers, members of the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) and the American Federation of Teachers, went on strike on Monday. It is the first time they have struck in almost thirty years.
I do not know how long the strike will last or how it will end. But I do know what is at stake. Los Angeles teachers are on strike to save public education in Los Angeles, in California, and in the United States. If they lose, even if they ultimately are forced to compromise, American children lose.
On the face of it, LA teachers are making pretty traditional union demands for pay raises and better working conditions. They also want smaller class sizes, more school librarians, caps on the number of charter schools in the district, and better social and health services for students and families. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is offering a 6% percent salary increase with back pay and a $100 million investment to hire more staff and decrease class size. Union negotiators want a 6.5% pay raise, more librarians, counselors and nurses on campuses, smaller class sizes and less testing, as well as a moratorium on new charter schools. The charter school moratorium looks like the main sticking point.
Sometimes teachers are presented in the press as being at odds with the needs of the communities and children that they serve. In Los Angeles the teachers have widespread community support. One reason for the close ties is that in a school district where the majority of the students are Latino, Latinos also make up a large plurality of the teaching staff. Teachers and parents have marched together in mass rallies in downtown areas and in front of the home of the school board President.
I worry a little when teachers strike because improved services for students and families are often the demands that are sacrificed when teacher unions and school boards reach a contractual “compromise.” I hope the LA teachers stand firm on their promise to the students and parents who are rallying in their support.
The Los Angeles school district keeps pleading poverty, but the underlying issues in the Los Angeles teachers strike are a much more serious threat to public education than an additional half percent salary increase. Los Angeles, the second largest school district in the United States, has more charter schools than any other school district in the country. The overwhelming majority of these charter schools are operated by corporate chains. Twenty percent of the Los Angles public school student population attend these schools, which have expanded enrollment by over 250% in the last decade. Charters draw off both better performing students and a proportionate amount of tax dollars from public school systems. Public schools and teachers are left trying to support children with the greatest academic and social needs with less resources. In Los Angeles, charter schools siphon off $600 million a year in already inadequate state dollars.
LA charter school expansion has been fueled by three powerful and related factors – cuts in public school funding, major corporate lobbying for school privatization, and attacks on teacher unions and teacher professionalism. All of these factors have to be fought against.
In California, support for public education was severely weakened by a bitter battle over school desegregation in the late 1970s that contributed to passage of a tax freeze initiative that shrank state revenue and handcuffed school districts. Miriam Pawel, writing in the New York Times, argues that “Public education in California has never recovered,” and that the tax freezes most “devastating impact” was in Los Angeles, “a district so large it educates about 9 percent of all students in the state.” California currently ranks poorly in average per-pupil spending on education, allocating about half the amount of New York State.
Nationally, the face of the charter school/school privatization movement is Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. But in Los Angles, the push for charters and privatization is bipartisan, led by the Eli Broad Foundation and its front organization, the misnamed Great Public Schools Now. Last fall they poured millions of dollars into the school board election to secure a pro-charter board majority and a pro-charter school Superintendent. Their goal is to move half of Los Angeles’ students into publicly funded but privately operated charter schools. Their chosen superintendent, Austin Beutner, was hired with no school background at all. So far he has expressed contempt for the teaching profession and has been quoted as saying “There are ways to educate kids that don't rely on a physical body.”
According to Pawel the charter school movement sabotages the public school system. “The more overcrowded and burdened the regular schools, the easier for charters to recruit students. The more students the district loses, the less money, and the worse its finances. The more the district gives charters space in traditional schools, the more overcrowded the regular classrooms.”
All of this is taking place amidst a nationally campaign led by rightwing forces like the Koch brothers and their front organization ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) to destroy teacher unions. Through funding for Janus v. AFSCME and other court cases they have successfully cut into the right of public service unions to collect dues. They are now lobbying for new state laws to further hamstring public service unions, including teacher unions. Koch and ALEC view teacher unions as a stumbling block in their campaign to completely privatize education in the United States.
A hopeful sign in the battle to save public education in Los Angeles is charter school teacher support for the strike by UTLA teachers. Teachers at the Accelerated Charter School also went on strike this week. There school has been plagued by a 40% teacher turnover rate. These teachers want to be treated like and paid like professional educators.
California Democratic Party leadership, including Governor Gavin Newson, Senator Kamala Harris, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, are all talked about as possible 2020 presidential contenders. Harris says she sides with the teachers. Garcetti and Newsom, so far, have just expressed disappoint that the talks broke down. Tacit support and deep concern are not enough. This triumvirate needs to step in and find state money to support L.A. schools, students, and teachers and put a stop to charter privatization of public education.
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