KIRK: Does L.A. mayor finally see the light?
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An unexpected Christmas present for California's schoolchildren came two weeks early when Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in an address to state leaders, declared the union leadership of United Teachers of Los Angeles an "unwavering roadblock to reform."
The mayor acknowledged that his own career included stints as a legislative advocate for the California Teachers Association and as a union organizer for UTLA. Yet facing schools that have become, in the mayor's words, "dropout factories" composed mostly of Latino and black students, Villaraigosa grew a spine that probably signals his belief that more political mileage can be derived from shifting his allegiance away from teachers unions and toward students and their disenchanted parents.
While the mayor mentioned the predictable liberal litany of things that harm California's public education