United States
Los Angeles Teachers
Resolutely
Defend Right to Education
Teachers rally at Los Angeles city hall, January 19, 2019.
About 34,000 Los Angeles teachers and staff,
in
more than 900 schools with more than 640,000 students
in the
country's second-largest school district went on strike
January 14
and remained out until January 23. After filling the streets
and
picketing at schools every day and holding massive demonstrations
of more than 50,000 at City Hall, the teachers and staff
secured
important gains. They voted by 81 per cent to accept their
new
contract and return to work. The Los Angeles unified school
district
agreed to
hire more nurses, librarians, and counselors; reduce standardized
testing and random police searches of students; create an
immigrant
defence fund; hand budget control of 30 schools over to
local
communities and reduce class sizes.
 
From day one of the strike, huge majorities of
teachers
showed up at their schools every morning to hold the picket
lines,
together with parents and students. Then strikers and their
supporters
headed downtown for rallies that topped 50,000 the first day
and
kept growing. The streets were full of joy. All week, everywhere
there
was
singing, dancing, spoken word, brass bands and mariachis.
Teachers did
not let the drenching rain daunt them; they suited up in ponchos,
and
laminated their song sheets and picket signs. As one sign put it,
"45
is the Speed Limit, Not a Class Size." They also made certain
that all
across the city, people were talking about the strike and its
demands
-- in coffee shops, on the bus, in stores.
The teachers took a stand of social
responsibility,
defending the interests of society for fully-funded public
schools,
with the nurses, librarians and counselors required, as well as
their
collective interests for better working conditions, like smaller
classes and wages commensurate with the difficult work they do.
The
United Teachers of Los
Angeles (UTLA) organized the strike, which had broad support from
parents, students and community organizations.
 
More counselors and nurses and smaller classes are
directly related to efforts to block the school-to-prison
pipeline.
California ranks 47th in the nation when it comes to
counsellor
access: there is an average of one counsellor for every 682
students, far exceeding the recommended ratio of one to 250.
At
the same time, the
district spends $80 million a year on police. The lack of
counselors, nurses, and social workers combined with large
classes
feeds the school-to-prison pipeline. Amir Whitaker, a staff
attorney
with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California
put it
this way: "It relates to the teachers having large classes: if
you
can't manage
forty students and call for help, and if there is no
social-emotional
support, only the police are on hand." Los Angeles has large
numbers of
African American and Latino students who bear the brunt of police
actions in the schools.
UTLA also called for a moratorium on new charter
schools in the district. The charters are privately run and not
accountable to the public, although they utilize public funds and
are
often co-located in public school buildings. One in five students
in
Los Angeles now attends a charter school, and there are more
than 200 such schools in
the district -- one of the largest proportions in the country.
The
charters are being utilized to undermine unions and eliminate
public
education and the social responsibility of government to provide
it.
However, in this case, charter school teachers supported the
strike and
planned a strike of their own.
At a mass public rally outside City Hall on
January 22, UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl told the crowd,
"We
did not win because of a single leader." He added, "We did not
win
because of a small group of leaders. We won because you -- at
more
than 900 schools across the entire city, with parents, with
students, with
community organizations -- you walked the line." He emphasized
later in
an interview, "The creativity and innovation and passion and love
and
emotion of our members was out on the street, in the communities,
in
the parks, for everyone to see. And I'm so proud of our members
--
classroom teachers, counselors, nurses, librarians,
psychologists,
early educators, adult educators -- who took it upon themselves,
in
record numbers on picket lines," to defend public education and
demand
government accountability for providing it.
At the mass rally on January 22, Secretary
and
Bargaining Chair Arlene Inouye reviewed the high points of the
tentative agreement, which was published in full on-line:
- A full-time nurse in every school.
Another 300
nurses will be hired over the next two years.
- A full-time librarian in every middle school
and high
school. The district will hire 82 more librarians.
- More counselors. The district will hire 17
more
counselors to maintain one counsellor for every 500 middle
and
high school students. While a case load of 500 is far higher
than
the needed 1 for every 250 students, it will assist. As
well
additional funding was secured to lower the ratios for
psychiatric
social
workers, psychologists and attendance counselors.
- An immigrant defence fund, with a dedicated
hotline
and attorney for immigrant families.
- Less testing. The district and union will
establish a
committee to cut the amount of standardized testing by half.
- Class size reductions. Gone is the hated
Section 1.5 which allowed the district to ignore contractual
limits on class size. Class size caps can now be enforced, and
when a
class goes over the cap a new class will need to be formed.
Further,
for grades 4-12 class limits will be decreased by four over
the
next three years.
- Progress on charters. The Board of Education
will
support a statewide moratorium on charter schools -- which is a
positive political step, though it does not mean a Los Angeles
moratorium. The union also won increased notice and voice in the
process where charter schools are co-located in neighborhood
schools.
- A 6 per cent raise, with 3 per cent
retroactive to the 2017-2018 school year and 3 per cent
for
this year, retroactive to July 1, 2018. There will be
salary
re-openers in future years.
- Fewer random searches. The number of schools
that do
not do random searches of students will double from 14
to 28.
- Community schools. Thirty schools will get this
designation and additional funding. A council of local people
will run
each school's budget, working with the community coordinator (a
new
union position).
- A joint push by the union, the district, and
the
mayor for more school funding from the county and state. Mayor
Eric
Garcetti agreed to endorse the Schools and Communities
First
initiative on the 2020 ballot, which will close California's
commercial property tax loophole and restore $11 billion in
funding to schools
and other public services.
- Green space. A task force to develop more green
space
in schools.
After the rally teachers returned to their school
sites
to
review and discuss the agreements with their co-workers, and vote
on
whether to accept it and return to work the next morning. Some
teachers
around the city were frustrated at a process they felt was
rushed. The
large
majority voted yes on the agreement, and returned to their
classrooms
on January 23.
Strike Blocks Efforts to Eliminate Public School
District
Los Angeles is the largest U.S. school district
governed
by an elected school board. (The largest district, New York City,
and
third largest, Chicago, are both governed by mayoral
appointees.)
 Year after year, its
school
board elections have broken spending records. Monopoly forces
striving
to eliminate public education spent $13 million in the last
Los
Angeles
board election. Most of it came from the Walton family (the
owners of
Walmart) and Eli Broad, two of the biggest funders nationally of
charter schools, vouchers, and
privatization. The anti-public schools forces won a majority of
the
seats on the school board. And after the previous superintendent
resigned early last year for health reasons, that majority
handpicked
the current superintendent, Austin Beutner. Beutner has no
education
backing and is a multi-millionaire from Wall Street. His plan,
backed
by Broad,
was to eliminate the unified Los Angles school district and
ensure at
least half of the students went to privately run but publicly
funded
charter schools. Beutner was previously used to undermine public
school
districts in Detroit and New Orleans, which now has no public
schools
remaining and no central school district. The Los Angeles strike
served
to
block this direction at this time.
As Arlene Inouye explained, "We are a union that
four
years ago set out on this path. This just didn't happen, you
know, the
last 21 months when we've been in negotiations. But four
years
ago, we set down a path to organize our schools, to bring in
parents
and communities and to have a social justice agenda, an
educational
justice
agenda for all of our students."
This article was published in
Number 5 - February 14, 2019
Article Link:
United States: Los Angeles Teachers
Resolutely
Defend Right to Education
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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