No Teachers Strike, Only Arrests. Stunting or Service?

Friday for the LAUSD situation was supposed to be a normal day- whatever you interpret that to be. For those of you that still watch television for your main news, you might have noticed there was still lots of commotion at the Beaudry headquarters with the LAPD coming in to arrest people, apparently all or mostly teachers. There were about 25 arrested for civil disobedience, roughly meaning that the police said the actions were in violation of law (like blocking traffic and such) and that they would be arrested if they did not move out immediately. The didn't and the UTLA president A.J. Duffy was one of them - and the story was so widely covered that I won't bother to put up any links or attribution.

The whole demonstration still seems oddly counter productive since there were other plans presented to save more jobs for teachers. So you really wonder what the purpose of the actions that the UTLA took on Friday, other than to get news coverage. In that regard, it did succeed. But the real message is what? It was more for show, in my opinion, after the court decided that the contract terms between the union and the district included a "no-strike" provision. What would a strike do for the LAUSD- the agency that has the responsibility to educate students? What would it do for the students? Mainly just cost lots of money for substitute teachers, possibly cause parents to keep students home (and the "ADA"- "average daily attendance" would drop, losing more dollars for each school), wasting much time AT school for those still there- all in all, a cost to taxpayers, disruption to schools and overall an expense for the single purpose of avoiding layoff of teachers.

This really reminded me of the protest about a month ago by activists demonstrating in Lincoln Heights against CVS pharmacy policies that kept condoms locked up. The activists said locking these items up was part of the idea of a genocidal move against Latinos to help the spread of AIDS and HIV, and that the displays should be unlocked. The response was simple. These items tend to be easily shoplifted. Were Latinos too shy to ask for assistance to buy condoms? The underlying labor issue of having an election for union representatio was brought out as the real reason for targeting that store. THAT was clearly a publicity stunt. It was not like CVS has the only condoms in the city and Rite-Aid drug store is two blocks away- move your business to them if it bothers you. That's just one of many alternative to the problem, if you want to call it that. But the L.A. Times went for it as a quirky story and covered it over other more legitimate choices in the local news. That demonstration really lost a lot of credibility for that organization (actually for both organizations, the L.A. Times and the protest organizers) for what IS a real health issue. Denial is still a big response to the AIDS and HIV issue by Latinos, but this protest was devalued its legitimacy.

The teachers union similary works against the teachers' interests by trying to portray all other things except the real one as the issue. When you look at the picture, it comes down to their real message to the District: "Do whatever it takes to keep all jobs for teachers" and that is the bottom line. The message is not "minimize" impact" or "improve efficiency" of the dollars available, or "ensure continued operation of the schools." It's "Don't lay off any teachers."

Over the weekend, the L.A. Times columnist Sandy Banks wrote a piece about this situation that addresses what's happening here. "Is all this really for the children? It's hard to believe that packing classes or protecting teachers' jobs is best for students." Sandy Banks, May 16, 2009. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-banks16-2009may16,0,1941822.column Sometimes Banks is very good at what she says and at other times, I think she is completely off the mark for whatever the reasons are that influence her. This time I think she got to the heart of the idea, but she is still a bit uncommittal, avoiding the placement of blame for any actions, but describing what motivates and concerns people involved. Banks leaves the conclusion for the reader to draw, but she might as well have taken the next step and added that to the story. It's something that might give you another view to help sort out the issues.

As a completely different source, but with some much stronger and conflicting views, you could read, "Los Angeles School Board eliminates thousands of teachers’ jobs,"
by D. Lencho, 9 May 2009, in the World Socialist Web Site, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/teac-m09.shtml

The article attacks the union and the district, and while they are at it, it includes the administration and throws in some facets of billionaires in Los Angeles, apparently for contrast sake. Some of the points raised and facts presented are absolutely clear, but the problem I see here is that the overall picture is "goal-oriented" so that they push their view of how things should be handled and that is through socialism. So if you think that UTLA was looking for socialism to any extent, it sure wasn't the case in the view of this author. I think a lot of what they write here is really useful in supporting the idea that layoffs need to be spread all around, including teachers. The omission of the fact of declining enrollment in LAUSD schools over the decade with increases in LAUSD personnel is overlooked. The story is put together well, aside from some of the conclusions drawn. The idea of making the union for not being more disruptive in a strike scenario, making them a villain to their members is interesting.
If the idea is getting attention, the UTLA did that. If that included getting some more support for their position, I would have to grade the work as a "Fail" and schedule a parent conference to see what can be done to find a successful outcome for the students.

More on LAUSD- strike is barred, teacher performance based termination changes in law requested

A couple of stories on the LAUSD teacher issues are continuing in the news.

And L.A. Times story. "School board members acknowledge swifter firings are needed; Four L.A. Unified board members say state laws need to be changed to get rid of underperforming teachers. Support for such efforts has increased in the wake of a Times investigation." By Jason Song May 13, 2009.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/05/la-schools-supt-reacts-to-teacher-dismissal-controversy-and-flu.html

There's the expected reaction coming from the recent series in the L.A. Times about the many teachers that can't be fired and that still get paid while housed at Beaudry headquarters. The LAUSD Board wants to have the state change laws but the Times items showed that the problems often came from mishandling of complaints and the processing by personnel that should be responsible for attending to hiring and continuing supervision. A lot of the problem is of LAUSD's own processes that you just don't see in the private sector, or if you do see it, the condition changes very soon upon discovery, and the people responsible have their own jobs to worry about.

There needs to be action to remedy situations like the one presented in the Times story, sounding similar in history to the various cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic church, including the Los Angeles Archdiocese under the "leadership" of Roger Mahoney. You may recall that there was the constant moving of priests and others accused or suspected of sexual abuse, instead of addressing the situation appropriately to end the conduct. Sometimes the people new location had some idea of the earlier problems and many times, nothing of the sort was mentioned, and the conduct was repeated upon other victims, usually children. The Archdiocese undeniably received favored treatment by law enforcement during investigations, and no one came in to clean out files and other records like what happens in other cases where it's not a church involved.

So let's not forget that. You had the D.A.'s office as another entity entangled with politics, not wanting to stir up a hornet's nest of controversy- but who suffers from that? It's justice that was shortchanged. It didn't help the victims. That entire scenario was not a good model to follow, but the impact on victims is no less serious when it's in the schools and not the church. In both cases, positions of respect and confidence allowed vulnerabilities of victims to be exploited.

The idea of easing restrictions on how a teacher can be terminated is one of the things that the Board voted for by a majority. President Monica Garcia is one of the persons usually in the union's corner, in the tradition of her benefactor, Mayor Villaraigosa.

Board President Monica Garcia, among others, cautioned that the solution would
be complicated and needed careful study.

Garcia seems to favor "studies" that are costly and that still leave you without any changes when much time has passed and much money has been spent. It seems that she is, in her own way, "running interference" for the union.

Look at her colleague, Board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, recently in the news when getting a big chunk of tax dollars as salary for consulting for state Sen. Gloria Romero, "Yolie Flores Aguilar, a longtime friend and political ally of some powerful California Democrats, last year supplemented her income as vice president of the Los Angeles school board with more than $32,000 as a consultant assigned to a state Senate committee that, during her tenure, did not meet or release any reports, " from the story, "California jobs go to those with connections; Lawmakers can hire anyone they choose. Sometimes that means friends and family." By Patrick McGreevy, March 27, 2009 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nepotism27-2009mar27,0,1567133.story

Flores Aguilar is in step with Garcia's view of this situation,

"We need a comprehensive strategy, we need to present a well-thought-out
legislation, and we [need] someone who will carry legislation. We have to do all
of our homework," said board member Yolie Flores Aguilar.

It all makes you wonder how anything will change when you have such an influence of politics overshadowing the need to act responsibly which is not always to stall things with a "study" but instead to move on making changes. Maybe one of the most significant changes you could ever see would be something done INTERNALLY to make the Headquarters and Sub-District offices do a better job to keep everything up to date. Some training in legal issues would help and some teacher and administrator training to avoid allowing the conditions that create lawsuits. And another improvement might be a novel one: using some common sense, often a scarce commodity in bureaucracies, as I have noticed over the years with many governmental agencies. When somebody asks for explanations for things, there should be prompt and good ones. There should not be cases where people have to construct lies or, maybe notice at that point, that what they have is not a completely responsible situation and they should not have let it get to that condition.

A lot can be done NOW to make the District act responsively instead of being a runaway train that will either crash or take miles and miles to slow down for control to be regained.

The other story is continuing from yesterday's L.A. Times story on the court order stopping a strike- updated for May 13, 2009- "Judge prohibits L.A. teachers strike; He grants a restraining order against the walkout planned for Friday, saying it defies the United Teachers union contract." By Howard Blume May 13, 2009 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd-strike13-2009may13,0,1958124.story

This strike is still something that many wanted to participate in but the law is what controls. If any complaints are to be made by UTLA members, complain to your negotiators who made up the contract. They could look into seniority as the controlling factor for layoff notices while they are at it.

You see in the story that there still was an impact from the threat of the strike, where cancellations of events and changes in schedules had to be made in anticipation of the strike happening, including a Lincoln High trip to Glendale Community College. While maybe not all people are going to college, the things like this trip being lost for that day is another waste of time in the planning and need for rescheduling. Exposure of even Community College facilities to many students is often enlightening. Many have not been exposed to what many of us now take for granted as know by all. Students don't necessarily "know all" about anything, and assuming so itself is a reason for a less-than-the-best learning environment to be presented. Such things like a strike that upset the school day have to be subordinate to what gets an educational experience accomplished for students at every opportunity.

Lots in this area- imparting personal knowledge and skill- can be helped along by persons with such personal knowledge showing many or even just a few students, those things that they otherwise would have to learn about from reading books, or from "field trips," and maybe not learning at all. There are so many people who are themselves potential resources for information that would be able to give students a richer learning experience, more easily getting students "engaged" in the process to perform better academically and at least be sure of what they do know from such mentors efforts.

The mentor approach is something that even I as a former teacher and alum of the school don't hear about as "happening." If I were a parent of an LHS student I might have that information, but even there, I am not sure that parents, in general, know much about what happens in school. I see numerous learning opportunities lost through the short-sightedness of people in administrative roles who remain confined in thought to ritualistic procedures. Some other approaches that seem to be "new" are often explored, including the "small learning academies" ("SLCs") that still don't make complete sense to me- if small is the only way to educate, then why do other districts with comparable populations have academic performance so much better without resorting to SLCs?

I will get into SLC discussions later and I don't think it's the panacea for the poor performance that many believe it to be.

May Day is over, May 15 UTLA Teacher Strike Coming

The May Day protests did not make much news, the freeway traffic was not any lighter and the LAPD has not new problems from crowd control handling. Now what we have, according to the news is that the UTLA, the teachers union, is calling for a one-day strike on May 15, 2009. The L.A. Times reported this planned action that is supposed to influence the LAUSD Board of Education in acting on the budget without cutting any teachers. "L.A. teachers union plans 1-day strike; The work stoppage could fall on a day for AP testing." By Howard Blume May 2, 2009 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd2-2009may02,0,5015121.story

The teachers have voted their approval of the action and it looks like you can look for that to happen. May 15th is a Friday and the story points out that the month of May has lots of testing events happening. Lincoln High School's calendar http://www.lincolnhs.org/apps/events/view_calendar.jsp?y=2009&m=4&id=0&rn=591120 shows some of this on their website, and the strike date, 5-15-09, has a few events that could be disrupted if the teachers are missing. One event, the Jr. ROTC awards is listed on the Calendar at 1:00 p.m. and at 8:00 p.m. The first blocked out time period is probably for students to be recognized by the student body, and the evening hour is for parents and the public. That might be affected since an absence of teachers supervising supportive functions for the evening event ceremony could keep it from going on as scheduled. I think the daytime event would be a casualty for certain.

I think that the move is something that is going to lose public support and create some hostilitiy from the public. The Union and the teachers' position to save jobs in something that really is a part of the overall fallout from the economic conditions coupled with the usual ineptitude LAUSD demonstrates in handling money. I think the Board is trying to keep a safety margin my not applying all the stimulus funding at one time. That would save some jobs but the problem does not end there. The budget problems are expected to continue to the next year as well, and so the Board wants to have some resources to address the situation, at least in part.

If the strike goes on, the disruption to the students day would be very likely, even if there are other teachers who don't leave. Not all teachers are members of the UTLA, but the equivalent of "DUES" payments are taken out of the paycheck's of all the teachers anyway under some arrangement, so being a member at least lets you a vote.

Every day that's disrupted simply makes a difficult situation, providing a good level of education, that much more difficult. That goes for the students leaving campus to protest anything as well as the teachers not teaching. By the teachers actions of adding to this disruptive condition, I think it's a big negative to the role they play. What you have here is the "job preservation" role superseding the "provide an education to the students" role. Most of the newer teachers voted for the stike I would expect since they are going to be the group from which layoffs will come.

The union asks for parent suppport but the support of parents is more emotionally based that logically based overall. The story reports a parent saying, "I'm there to do whatever it takes to have my daughter get a good education." But supporting this option to arrive at a short term preservation of jobs might not be the best thing in the long run. There's still a lot to examine, but parents involvement is pretty easy to enlist if you address their emotional side and show how their child is served by it. It doesn't have to be an accurate picture, but that will get parents into this. For that reason, it's hard to use general parent assessments of the situation to be the best barometers of worthiness of the move.

We'll see if the teachers union does not hit a bad chord with the public by this move. You have to wonder if they have gone too far at this time when so many others are being laid off and my say, "Why should teachers be immune from this?"

There's also talk of an initiative to add more sales tax for education. Another bad move, in my opinion, but that's not a certain decision so far. As it is, the sales tax is too high. I don't think that all the people who voted for the sales tax really understood what the respective ballot measures really meant. Another reason for having an informed electorate and not rely on the best t.v. ads for the truth. Well, the authorization vote is done and we will see if they strike, which I say is another way to shoot yourself in the foot on this issue, and should be avoided.