New LAUSD Contract Slights Students, Taxpayers

Los Angeles public school support staff, teachers, and supporters rally outside of the school district headquarters on the first day of a three day strike in Los Angeles on March 21, 2023. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

Commentary

The unfortunate students of the Los Angeles Unified School District! The new contract the district worked out with the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) union says it’s to help the kids, but it’s really only to help the union and its members—with the taxpayers picking up the tab.

The UTLA’s website boasted the new three-year contract, lasting until June 30, 2025, was “a victory for educators, students, and families. ... This success comes after 11 months at the bargaining table and an 8-month democratic process in which UTLA members and the community identified collective priorities and spent a year of intense collective action to force LAUSD to agree to the tentative proposals outlined below.”

By “democratic process” they sure don’t mean approval by the voters of Los Angeles. And “intense collective action” means labor strikes that left the kids locked out of classrooms. About which they actually boasted: “By holding the district accountable through school site pickets, boycotts of afterschool faculty meetings, a 60,000-member joint rally with SEIU 99, and near 100% participation in the 3-day solidarity strike, UTLA demonstrated its strike readiness to the district.”

The contract includes a 21 percent salary increase over three years. How many of the taxpayers footing the bill are going to get such raises? It’s true inflation has been in the 6-8 percent range the past two years. But a recession is approaching and will bring cuts in pay, even layoffs, for hundreds of thousands of Angelenos.

And there’s a class-size reduction of two students on average. This seems good. But studies are mixed on the results. I remember when Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, in 1996 got the Legislature to pass a class-size reduction program. In 2002, the Public Policy Institute of California issued a study on the results:

“It is generally assumed that the fewer students in a class, the better they will learn and the higher they will score on nationwide tests—currently one of the most common measures of student achievement.

“Nevertheless, several things could go wrong with mandated class size reduction (CSR). This report presents evidence that the potential success or failure of such a reform may depend largely on how it is implemented and how teachers and administrators respond. If it is implemented quickly on a large scale, such a program may run into serious problems.”

The biggest problem was finding thousands of new teachers. Then there was this problem:

“Many teachers in economically disadvantaged communities left their schools to fill vacancies created in other schools. Thus, many schools had to fill not only the positions created by their own efforts to reduce class size but also positions vacated by departing teachers.”

That’s because California’s unions, including the UTLA, will not allow performance pay for teachers. That is, the best teachers get paid the same as the worst teachers. And layoffs depend on seniority, not competence. Which means a good young teacher gets laid off before an incompetent teacher with seniority.

‘Equitable’ Failure

Back to the UTLA’s explanation of the new contract. UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz said:

“LAUSD now has an opportunity to become one of the most successful school districts in the country. We held the line during bargaining on a number of initiatives because educators are the experts on what has the ability to transform LAUSD into a more equitable environment that not only improves students’ learning, but also the quality of life for LA families. Smaller class sizes will give our kids the attention and care they require, and competitive salaries will ensure our schools can successfully hire, retain and develop successful teachers and educators to mold our young leaders of tomorrow.”

The buzzword there is “equitable.” Which, as I have said, is just a code word for socialism. Instead of getting the best teachers, rewarding them with higher pay, and insisting on excellence in the classroom, “equitable” means rearranging the system to suit political needs.

And where will they get the new teachers? The April 10 San Francisco Chronicle ran an op-ed by Erica Eva Colmenares and Scott Jarvie, two professors who are former schoolteachers, headlined, “California has a teacher shortage. Its credentialing process is making it worse.” The story:

“California’s teacher shortage is not new. Before the pandemic, it had reached crisis proportions, with over 80% of the state’s districts experiencing dire scarcity. Since COVID began, however, the problem has only grown more acute. And despite recent headlines of an increase in credentialed teachers throughout the state, the reality remains: California desperately needs more teachers.”

Low Achievement

Then there’s the problem of academic performance. The LAUSD itself reported on the decline of academic achievement in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdowns:

English Language Arts

• Districtwide, the percentage of students scoring in the Standard Met or Standard Exceeded achievement levels decreased by 2.26 percentage points when compared to 2018-19, from 43.93 percent to 41.67 percent.
• The percentage of students scoring in the Standard Met or Standard Exceeded achievement levels decreased in every grade level except for grade eight. In grade eight, scores for students meeting or exceeding standards increased by 0.47 percentage points, from 41.20 percent in 2018-19 to 41.67 in 2021-22.

Mathematics

• Districtwide, the percentage of students scoring in the Standard Met or Standard Exceeded achievement levels decreased by 5.03 percentage points when compared to 2018-19, from 33.50 to 28.47.
• The percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards decreased in every grade level. The greatest decrease was observed in grade eleven (9.73 percentage points—from 28.61 to 18.88), followed by grade eight (5.83 percentage points—from 29.27 to 23.44), and grade six (5.73 percentage points—from 32.56 to 26.83).

Note the levels already were low before remote learning made them worse. And let’s remember the UTLA insisted the lockdowns had to last longer than in most districts.

Conclusion: Union Power in Action

The new LAUSD-UTLA contract demonstrates, again, the lock-grip the public-employee unions have on the state of California. All the new contract does does is reward failure. There are no innovations to advance achievement, such as merit pay for the best teachers.

The LAUSD’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022 suffered an unrestricted net deficit of $15.4 billion; a slight improvement over the prior year’s $16.4 billion. Almost all that money is owed for pensions and retiree medical benefits. Those liabilities will grow proportionally with the higher salaries and as future teachers retire.

So long as the UTLA’s power continues to throttle true reforms, little will be done to improve student achievement. The kids are just pawns in the union’s game.

John Seiler’s email: [email protected]

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.