What’s At Stake in the LA Teachers Union Standoff
Far more is at stake in Los Angeles than a traditional contract struggle in the stand-off between United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) and LAUSD.
What even conscientious followers of media outlets likely don’t know is the reforms LAUSD has demanded in Los Angeles schools are based on a decades-long effort to turn education into a market for investors. This project, advanced by wealthy executives and their foundations, has advocated reforms nationally–and internationally–seen in LA schools already:
- using standardized tests to control what and how children learn;
- creating charter schools to weaken neighborhood schools and undermine parent loyalty to public education;
- creating new revenue sources for corporations to profit from the education marketplace; and
- weakening teachers unions.
The “portfolio model” LAUSD will adopt if permitted has already been tested in many cities. The reform fragments the school system into networks operated by private charter management organizations, and though the model is said to provide “choice” for low-income children of color by privatizing school management, we have ample evidence privatization has increased school segregation and racial disparities in educational outcomes.
Across the nation, states have punished districts with low standardized test scores for students with “takeovers,” disenchfranchising low-income communities of color by denying them the right to have elected school boards.
Across the nation, states have punished districts with low standardized test scores for students with “takeovers,” disenchfranchising low-income communities of color by denying them the right to have elected school boards.
Across the nation, from New Jersey to Louisiana, Massachusetts to Michigan, states have punished districts with low standardized test scores for students with “takeovers,” disenchfranchising low-income communities of color by denying them the right to have elected school boards. In many of these takeovers, states have imposed the “portfolio model” in which a small number of students have increased educational opportunities, but as is clear in New Orleans, the vast majority of schools and teachers flounder. As will likely occur in Los Angeles if this model is implemented, a few elite and well-funded public schools will exist the whitest and most affluent parts of the city. A handful of low-income students may find spots in these schools but most will languish in charter schools that are virtually unregulated by central authorities.
As teacher union influence has waned, especially among Democrats, who have adopted the pro-privatization views of their largest donors, teachers have become angry about their unions’ inability to stem deteriorating conditions in CONTINUE READING: What's At Stake in the LA Teachers Union Standoff - LA Progressive
