UTLA- A Landmark Year For Union Election Corruption by Mark Hemphill
(For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)
Part 1: Where It All Began
Unless you're a member of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) teaching community, you probably didn't know that round one of the elections for offices within the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) union has come and gone and round two comes to a conclusion March 29 between the two surviving virtually indistinguishable runoff slates to decide the remaining offices. However, even if you're a member of the teaching community, you may not know of these events, given that estimates of the voter turnout ran as low as 15% and no higher than 17%. Pretty sorry for the second largest teacher's union in the country. At some school sites, teachers didn't even know there was an election, and if they did, they couldn't identify the candidates much less separate them by their positions on issues. But even if you're not a teacher, Keep this in mind. What happens here will dramatically effect all teachers, public education and you by transference. So read on if