L.A. teachers union seeks to raise dues as it fights a charter school push
The Los Angeles teachers union has long been the most powerful player in local education.
But with the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and other well-heeled nonprofits pushing hard to fundamentally change the nature of public education in Los Angeles, enrollment in traditional schools is declining and nonunion charter schools are on the rise.
The teachers union needs money to fight back.
There are, however, far fewer teachers to pay dues to United Teachers Los Angeles.
So this week the union asked its 32,000 members — down from 45,000 in 2008 — to raise their dues by nearly a third, to about $1000 per member annually, and also to allow UTLA to pass on to members any future increases in dues owed to state and national parent unions.
The votes will be counted Wednesday.
A previous attempt to increase dues failed in 2008, but this time the stakes are higher and union leaders are more hopeful of success.
Union President Alex Caputo-Pearl said that the money will help combat a brand of reform that favors operating schools more like businesses — for example, by using metrics-based performance evaluations such as standardized test scores to rate teachers.
Nationwide, districts have become battlefields over the business model versus more traditional approaches to public education. And Los Angeles, a pro-labor enclave with the country's second-largest district, is widely seen as the front that could shift momentum in either direction.
Los Angeles school board elections, pitting union-endorsed candidates against union critics, are the most expensive in the nation.
UTLA also wants money for legal fights.
An L.A. County Superior Court judge recently threw out traditional teacher job protections as harmful to students — a verdict that is on appeal. And the U.S. Supreme Court is L.A. teachers union seeks to raise dues as it fights a charter school push - LA Times: