My Message to the Teachers of Los Angeles
The United Teachers of Los Angeles have voted to authorize a strike. The union has been negotiating with Superintendent Austin Beutner, a former investment banker who has no experience in education.
I sent the following message to the teachers of Los Angeles.
I am writing to my friends who teach in the Los Angeles Unified School District to encourage you to stay strong in your demands for smaller classes and the resources your students need.
Your working conditions are your students’ learning conditions.
You should not be expected to pay out $1,000 or more from your salary for school supplies.
I am astonished that one of the cities with the greatest concentration of wealth in the world is unwilling to pay what it costs to educate its children.
John Dewey wrote more than a century ago: “What the best and wisest parent wants for his children, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.”
The billionaires who have declared war on public education and who are funding the California Charter School Association would not tolerate overcrowded classrooms, obsolete textbooks, and crumbling buildings in the schools their children attend. They should not tolerate such conditions in the public schools of Los Angeles that other people’s children attend, people without their wealth.
They want the best for their children, and they should demand the best for all children, and pay for it.
Please fight against “school choice,” an idea that was first launched by segregationists in the South to block the Brown decision in the late 1950s. It is now the favorite cause of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who wants to replace our nation’s democratically-controlled public schools with a menu of “choices,” none of which are as good as public schools.
In California, as elsewhere, charter advocates oppose accountability and Continue reading: My Message to the Teachers of Los Angeles | Diane Ravitch's blog
