How the Debate Over Charter Schools Is Fueling the Looming Los Angeles Teacher Strike
More than 30,000 Los Angeles teachers are preparing to strike on Monday for the first time in 30 years due to failed negotiations over school funding, pay raises and classroom sizes. But as they look to mobilize support, teachers are also focusing on the growth of charter schools as a central issue in the nation’s second largest school district.
At a press conference Wednesday night following another day of negotiations, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) President Alex Caputo-Pearl accused district leaders of wanting “to starve our schools in order to justify cuts and justify handing more schools over to privately run charter schools.”
He called for a cap on charter school growth, including it on a list of issues that, while not on the bargaining table now, “absolutely shape the direction of public education in Los Angeles.”
Los Angeles schools Superintendent Austin Beutner has said previously that the contract dispute should not be seen as a referendum on charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated. And he has called claims that he wants to privatize the school district “baseless.” But the issue has become a focal point in the debate over the future of Los Angeles schools, as union leaders accuse Beutner and the city’s Board of Education of favoring charter schools over traditional public schools.
About one in five Los Angeles students now attend charter schools, and charter school enrollment has continued to grow in the past decade as overall enrollment in the district has declined. The city now has more charter schools and more charter school students than any other school system in the country, the Los Angeles Times reported. Most charter school employees are not unionized.
Meanwhile, charter school advocates have been gaining ground in the city. In 2017, outside spending on campaigns for two school board seats topped $14 million in what was described as “the most expensive school board race in U.S. history” — an election that pitted teachers unions against wealthy charter school backers, resulting in a pro-charter majority on the board.
Union leaders and other charter school critics argue that such schools have CONTINUE READING: Charter School Debate Fueling the Los Angeles Teacher Strike | Time
