Lack of school nurses puts Los Angeles students at risk, striking teachers say #UTLA #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

Lack of school nurses puts Los Angeles students at risk, striking teachers say

Lack of school nurses puts Los Angeles students at risk, striking teachers say

Los Angeles teacher Natali Escobedo says she will never forget the image of a diabetic fourth-grader “wilting” at her school because there was no nurse on hand to administer his insulin.

The episode, which followed years of tight budgets that left little money for medical staff, highlights the potential impact of a lack of nurses throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the key reasons Escobedo and her colleagues are on strike.

In L.A., as in many districts across the United States, the school nurse is the first and sometimes only point of entry for many families into a complicated and expensive health-care system.

Like most schools in the more than 1,200-campus district, Lockwood Elementary, where Escobedo teaches, has a nurse just once a week. Children who become ill are left to the care of first-aid trained administrators or simply wait for a nurse to come from a nearby school to help them.

“There were times when the student would be struggling because of his condition,” Escobedo said. “He would have to wait or the nurse would get sidetracked due to some other emergency and my student had to sit in the office like a wilting flower waiting for his medicine to arrive.”

Teachers in the massive district, which serves more than 600,000 students, have been on strike since Jan. 14.

In an unusual twist for a labor negotiation, the two sides are fairly close on salary, but teachers say they are holding out for an improvement in student conditions, citing the need for more school nurses, psychologists and smaller class sizes in a district where as many as 46 students are sometimes crammed in a single classroom.

The teachers are demanding a full-time nurse at every school in the district, compared CONTINUE READING: Lack of school nurses puts Los Angeles students at risk, striking teachers say

Dana Goldstein: Democrats Are United on Teacher Strikes. But They’re in a ‘Gladiator Fight’ Over Education. - The New York Times #UTLA #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

Democrats Are United on Teacher Strikes. But They’re in a ‘Gladiator Fight’ Over Education. - The New York Times

Democrats Are United on Teacher Strikes. But They’re in a ‘Gladiator Fight’ Over Education.

When 30,000 Los Angeles teachers went on strike on Monday, prominent Democrats — and potential presidential candidates — lined up to give their blessings.

Senator Kamala Harris of California said she was “standing in solidarity” with teachers, who are demanding higher pay, smaller classes and more support staff.

“I’m with teachers all the way,” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said on Twitter.

Senators Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Kirsten Gillibrand and Bernie Sanders all shared similar sentiments about a strike that has drawn broad public support but disrupted the routines of half a million, mostly low-income children.

In 2019, after a year of teacher walkouts across the country, it is practically impossible for a national Democrat to profess anything short of full-throated support for picketing educators. But many of them this week steered clear of the most contentious underlying cause of the strike: the teacher union’s opposition to the growth of charter schools, and the union’s claim that district officials — who are largely Democrats — favor charter schools over traditional ones.

The unified cheers from Democrats belie deep and long-running rifts in the party over what public education should look like, at a time when the party is debating its direction. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, likened the Los Angeles strike to “a gladiator fight” between two factions.

On one side are those who have hewed to President Barack Obama’s centrist position on schools: supporting high-performing charters, which are publicly funded but privately managed, while putting pressure on teachers’ unions to raise student achievement and give up some of their traditional seniority protections.

On the other side is organized labor, which has resisted the growth of the mostly nonunion charter sector. Union leaders say charters take students and public dollars from traditional neighborhood schools.

But as democratic socialism, and sympathy for unions, is on the rise among young Democrats, the Obama-era view that charters create more competition and better choices for families no longer rules the party.

Over the past year, teacher walkouts, including six in conservative and swing states, have captured the public’s attention. The movement has “reshaped the discussion within the Democratic Party nationally,” said Alex Caputo-Pearl, the firebrand president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the union that is currently on strike. “Do we need to back away from what corporate Democrats have been promoting for a long time, which is charter schools and privatization?” CONTINUE READING: Democrats Are United on Teacher Strikes. But They’re in a ‘Gladiator Fight’ Over Education. - The New York Times

Update: Day FIVE Of The L.A. Teachers’ Strike | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... #UTLA #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

Update: Day FIVE Of The L.A. Teachers’ Strike | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

UPDATE: DAY FIVE OF THE L.A. TEACHERS’ STRIKE

Here are new additions to The Best Resources For Learning About The L.A. Teachers’ Strike:

Democrats Are United on Teacher Strikes. But They’re in a ‘Gladiator Fight’ Over Education. is from The NY Times.

LAUSD teachers’ strike, Day 5: The sun’s out, L.A. strikers gather, and hopes rise for a settlement is from The L.A. Times.

LA teachers’ strike marks a return to normal is from Brookings.

In the L.A. teachers’ strike, the state is the real problem. is from The Atlantic.

Who could come out strong in the LAUSD teachers’ strike when all is said and done? is from The L.A. Times.

Charter School Teachers in Los Angeles Are Now Striking as Well is from Ed Week.

Los Angeles teachers union, school district head back to the bargaining table on fourth day of strike is from The Washington Post.

Talks resume in effort to end strike by LA teachers is from The Associated Press.

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Update: Day FIVE Of The L.A. Teachers’ Strike | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

NYC Public School Parents: What LA teachers are teaching the country about the need to reduce class size #UTLA #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

NYC Public School Parents: What LA teachers are teaching the country about the need to reduce class size

What LA teachers are teaching the country about the need to reduce class size

Last week I published a column on the Washington Post Answer Sheet about how class size is the central issue in the Los Angeles teacher strike, now going on for a week.

Los Angeles schools have a $1.8 billion surplus, and yet Superintendent Austin Beutner still insists that he can ignore any and all class size caps in the teacher contract, because of a loophole that was inserted in the contract after the great recession hit, a decade ago.

Ignoring these contractual caps - which are still too high -- means that class sizes in Los Angeles can rise to 35 or 40 in many schools, which are ridiculously large and far too large to provide any student with  sufficient feedback from their teachers.

In the piece, I also explained how many insiders suspect that the real reason the pro-charter LA school board and  Superintendent so obdurately refuse to lower class size is that this would take up space in their schools that instead they'd prefer to give to the expanding charter schools.

I also dispute the risible claims made in an oped by Arne Duncan, in which he tossed in the red herring of unreliable average class size data as cited by the district, rather than admit that the real focus of discontent among parents and teachers are the maximum class sizes that many LA students suffer.  Duncan also went on to repeat the tired straw man argument that parents would prefer their children have a good teacher than a small class- as though that's a real world choice any parent should have to make.

Class sizes have increased across the country since the recession, and even though we're a decade past that point, school budgets haven't fully recovered.  I'm encouraged that in Los Angeles as well as many of the other states where teachers led strikes and walk-outs last year, including Oklahoma,  Colorado,  and Arizona,  this has led to a resurgence in people's awareness of the key issue of class size, because its a too often-ignored component of any real school improvement strategy.

Despite all the more trendy proposals will concerning online learning, community schools or pre-K expansion, class sizes in grades K-12 are far too large in most public schools around the country to provide kids with a real opportunity too learn.  As Dale Farran, one of the lead investigators in the Vanderbilt preK study -- the most authoritative large-scale experiment ever done on expanding preK, has concluded: 

“Too much has been promised from one year of preschool intervention without the attention needed to the quality of experiences children have and what happens to them in K-12.”

Here in NYC, class sizes also remain far bigger than they were when the state's highest court  said they were too large to offer students their constitutional right to a sound basic education in the decision in the CFE case. 

The union class size caps in NYC public schools are also are far too large, and haven't been lowered in over fifty years - CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: What LA teachers are teaching the country about the need to reduce class size

The Mind Inside: Episode One - Network For Public Education

The Mind Inside: Episode One - Network For Public Education

The Mind Inside: Episode One

The Mind Inside series was created by I Love Public Schools, a project of Nebraska Loves Public Schools. The series explores one of the most pressing and complicated issues in public education today, mental health. Schools are being asked to address immediate and varied needs of students and provide more social, emotional, and behavioral support services than ever before.

The first episode lays the foundation for The Mind Inside series, establishing what life looks like in public schools today and how mental health impacts the classroom.

Watch the film

Watch stories from students, hear from school leaders, and understand the growing need for compassion, empathy, and support for students.

The Mind Inside: Episode One - Network For Public Education

Who “Taught” Your LAUSD Student Last Week? – Carl J. Petersen – Medium #UTLA #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

Who “Taught” Your LAUSD Student Last Week? – Carl J. Petersen – Medium

Who “Taught” Your LAUSD Student Last Week?

“The messages we are required to send [home to parents] are inaccurate and untruthful. Everything is not copacetic at all of our schools. Some schools have over 200 students with [just] one credentialed person.”

- Juan A. Flecha, President
Associated Administrators of Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) could have shut down the schools when their teachers walked off the job and then made up the missing days after the strike was over. Instead, they kept the schools open and encouraged parents to send their children into an environment where they admitted they might not be safe. To make matters worse, the School Board weakened the rules regarding background checks for volunteers just as the strike was about to begin.

Thankfully, there have not been any reports of students receiving serious injuries during the past week, although the anemic attendance at the schools is probably helping that situation. However, at least three reports have shown that the adults being allowed into our schools have not been adequately screened and are engaging in behavior that is not appropriate for our children.

In the first instance, a woman identified by witnesses as “an LAUSD administrator” gave the middle finger to picketing teachers and told them that they “you guys are pollutants to our children”. In the second, a woman assigned to “a school in South Gate” tells picketers that they “care about…money, not the kid’s education.” Without further context, she then says “Build the wall. All you guys wouldn’t be here.”

The District’s response to the second incident was to remove the employee “from her assigned campus” and conduct “an investigation into the incident.” The wording of this messaging seems purposefully vague as it leaves open the possibility that she was removed from “her assigned campus” and placed in another one. Anyone with clear animosity towards Latinx people should not be in close proximity to any children.

The final example is perhaps the most disturbing because it actually involved students in the District. While a former Superintendent once bullied a substitute teacher for following directions and having her students copy an assignment into their composition books, this type of assignment is apparently permissible, during the strike. In this case, Mr. B. was having students write a CONTINUE READING: Who “Taught” Your LAUSD Student Last Week? – Carl J. Petersen – Medium

Jeff Bryant: A Swelling Tide of Major Teacher Strikes Is Shifting Our Politics Against the Charter Agenda #UTLA #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

A Swelling Tide of Major Teacher Strikes Is Shifting Our Politics Against the Charter Agenda

A Swelling Tide of Major Teacher Strikes Is Shifting Our Politics Against the Charter Agenda
When charter schools pull funding from a public school, it damages the school’s ability to educate the students who remain

This week, Republican lawmakers held a press conference on Capitol Hill to kick off National School Choice Week, an annual event that began in 2011 under President Obama who proclaimed it as a time to “recognize the role public charter schools play in providing America’s daughters and sons with a chance to reach their fullest potential.” This year, Democratic lawmakers took a pass on the celebration. You can thank striking teachers for that.

In the latest teacher strike in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest school system, some 30,000 teachers walked off the job saying unchecked growth of charter schools and charters’ lack of transparency and accountability have become an unsustainable drain on the public system’s financials. The teachers have included in their demands a cap on charter school growth, along with other demands, such as increased teacher pay, reduced class sizes, less testing, and more counselors, nurses, librarians, and psychologists.

The LA teachers’ opposition to charter schools is just the latest voice in a growing chorus of public school teachers calling on politicians to do more to support the public schools we have rather than piling more dollars and accolades onto a competitive charter school industry. And with the backing of nearly 80 percent of Los Angeles County residents, according to one survey, the teachers likely have the clout to change the politics of “school choice” in California, and perhaps the nation.

#RedForEd in a Blue State

Many of the grievances the LA teachers have are familiar to anyone who followed last year’s startling #RedForEd movement, which resulted in mass teacher walkoutsprimarily in red states, including West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Arizona. In each of those uprisings, teachers protested inadequate pay and benefits, lack of funding for their schools, misplaced emphasis on testing and standards, and a general disregard for teachers’ voices. Teacher opposition to charter schools, vouchers, and other forms of choice had a presence in these walkouts, but LA teachers are making grievances against charter schools central to their protests.

Union president Alex Caputo-Pearl has declared the district’s pro-charter school policies are “a major theme” of the strike, and on the second day of the strike, teachers descended on the downtown offices of the California Charter Schools Association and surrounded the building.

“We need to throw privatization schemes … into the trash can,” Caputo-Pearl is quoted CONTINUE READING: A Swelling Tide of Major Teacher Strikes Is Shifting Our Politics Against the Charter Agenda

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Offers Advice From Within The Bubble

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Offers Advice From Within The Bubble

DeVos Offers Advice From Within The Bubble

Betsy Devos is rich. She was born rich, married rich, and barring any French Revolution style upheaval, she will die rich. This does not automatically make her evil, but it does make her susceptible to life in a bubble-- particularly since she never created nor ran any of the businesses that made her wealthy. And it's important to remember all this when she starts waxing rhapsodic about the lessons she learned growing up back in the day.

DeVos returned to the public eye this week, wheelchair bound from a broken pelvis that was the result of a biking accident (that has got to hurt like hell-- good thing she has good health insurance) to have a "fireside chat" about youthful entrepreneurship. It was a chance for her to show that she has some awareness of what life is like outside the bubble.

Business, after all, is her second religion. Most of her policy decisions make sense viewed through this lenses. The trashing of oversight, the shredding of regulations, all flow from one simple idea-- government should never interfere with the operation of business. Businessmen should never have to compromise their vision to accommodate some government rule, and government should never give the Little People the power to challenge or interfere with business.

So there she was at Gallup HQ for Lemonade Day to talk to Joe Daly of Gallup to talk about the state of youthful entrepreneurship which, according to the Gallup folks, is not strong.

Daly reported polling data that said young people have become less entrepreneurial since 1977 but mostly in the last decade. And the millennial generation is “on track to be even less entrepreneurial” than Generation X and baby boomers.

That's an interesting factoid to consider. And DeVos has some thoughts.

"Well,” she said, "you certainly are the ones with data, but I have some sort of instinctual ideas about it. I think they are quite broad and varied. For one thing, generally speaking, younger people have grown up in a more protected environment. We’ve heard lots about helicoptering parenting CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Offers Advice From Within The Bubble

Black Teachers Buck Beutner’s Billionaire Boys Club - LA Progressive #UTLA #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

Black Teachers Buck Beutner’s Billionaire Boys Club - LA Progressive

Black Teachers Buck Beutner’s Billionaire Boys Club

While thousands of L.A. teachers, students, parents, caregivers and supporters took to the rain-soaked streets to strike and fight for the life of public education this week, LAUSD’s one-percenter superintendent Austin Beutner took to the op-ed pages of oligarch mouthpiece the Wall Street Journal to scold UTLA for bad math skills. The union’s challenge to Beutner’s privatization regime has been a national lightning rod for a revitalized resistance movement.

A recent study on Black student achievement found that Black students who had just one Black teacher by third grade were 13% more likely to go to college. Those who had two Black teachers were 32% more likely.

Black teachers have consistently been on the frontlines of this resistance. A recent study on Black student achievement found that Black students who had just one Black teacher by third grade were 13% more likely to go to college. Those who had two Black teachers were 32% more likely. Overall, having a Black teacher made students more likely to “ask questions and talk about school subjects out of class”.

This is not rocket science for those of us who were fortunate enough to have gotten a solid foundation of Afrocentric pedagogy growing up or to have been raised in a community of conscious Black teachers who challenged us to think critically. Yet, many Black students aren’t exposed to Black teachers at an early age because of the overwhelming whiteness of the profession and racist, sexist barriers to Black recruitment and retention.

African American teachers are approximately 8-9% of the LAUSD’s teacher population. They are in the trenches of a district that has become a national symbol for the crippling effect urban apartheid, neoliberal control, and disinvestment have had on historically Black public schools and neighborhoods. This week, Black teachers walked the line and spoke, chanted and testified their truths on street corners and in traffic, driving one of the biggest public employee union uprisings of the decade.  As Dorsey High School English teacher Ashunda Norris commented, “We know that systematically, across the country, large numbers of Black students are not being adequately served in the public school setting. When the demands of this strike are met, it means a great amount of Afro American children will CONTINUE READING: Black Teachers Buck Beutner’s Billionaire Boys Club - LA Progressive

Oakland teachers holding 1 day 'sick-out' to protest contract talks | abc7news.com #REDFORED

Oakland teachers holding 1 day 'sick-out' to protest contract talks | abc7news.com

Oakland teachers hold rally, walkout over contract talks

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) --

Oakland teachers protested outside of Oakland Tech High School Friday morning and then marched down Broadway to the school district offices to demand a 12 percent pay raise over three years and smaller classes.

The district is currently offering a five percent raise over three years.

"We've been waiting a long time, a year and a half. It shows us we are not a priority, the kids are not a priority. So it means we can't be quiet anymore we want to stand up and make sure kids have what they need and that we have what we need to stay in this town, said Oakland Tech teacher Katie Bailey.

RELATED: Building a Better Bay Area: Keeping teachers in the Bay Area

The district brought in substitute teachers but they don't have enough to cover all the teacher absences so some schools will have a modified schedule today.

"If most of the teachers are gone we won't be able to do some of the classes. We won't have algebra, English, the way they have been done. We may have bigger classes, classes in the library, classes in auditorium, on the field playing soccer, things like that," said Oakland Unified School District spokesperson John Sasaki.

Some students joined teachers in the protest. Sasaki said if their parents called in their absence, it would be excused.

RELATED: Teachers seeking solutions to San Francisco's affordable housing crisis

"I really think it shows it's not just the teachers who are upset. The students are noticing too and they're picking up on the issues and want to help their teachers. We CONTINUE READING:Oakland teachers holding 1 day 'sick-out' to protest contract talks | abc7news.com

As LA Teachers Strike Over Charter Schools, Democrat Cory Booker Speaks at Pro-Charter Rally | gadflyonthewallblog #UTLA #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

As LA Teachers Strike Over Charter Schools, Democrat Cory Booker Speaks at Pro-Charter Rally | gadflyonthewallblog

As LA Teachers Strike Over Charter Schools, Democrat Cory Booker Speaks at Pro-Charter Rally

What a slap in the face!

In California, 30,000 Los Angeles teachers are on strike because charter schools are gobbling up their funding without providing the same level of quality services or accountability.

Meanwhile in New Orleans, Sen. Cory Booker is giving the keynote address at a charter school rally.

That wouldn’t be surprising if Booker was a Republican.

Donald Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a big time champion of school privatization over public schools.

But like LA Superintendent Austin Beutner, Booker – a New Jersey lawmaker – is supposed to be a Democrat.

The party is supposed to stand for social goods, doing what’s best for everyone not just the few. 

However, when Booker gave the keynote address at the “Project LIVE & Achieve” Rally for Excellence today, he made it clear whose side he’s on. And it’s not CONTINUE READING: As LA Teachers Strike Over Charter Schools, Democrat Cory Booker Speaks at Pro-Charter Rally | gadflyonthewallblog

Backing Teachers, Sanders Says LA Strike Exposes National Need for 'Revolution in Public Education'

Backing Teachers, Sanders Says LA Strike Exposes National Need for 'Revolution in Public Education'

Backing Teachers, Sanders Says LA Strike Exposes National Need for 'Revolution in Public Education'
"What we accept as normal today with regard to education, I want your grandchildren to tell you that you were crazy to accept," said the Vermont senator

Tens of thousands of public school teachers and support staff with the Los Angeles Unified School District—the second-largest district in the country—continued the city's first strike in three decades on Thursday.

The United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) kicked off the long-promised strike on Monday over unmet demands for higher payer; smaller class sizes; more special education staff, bilingual education instructors, nurses, counselors, and librarians; and stricter regulation of the city's many charter schools.

Arleta HS is out strong on the picket line. Here we are, in the richest country in the world, in the richest state in the country, and in a city rife with millionaires – where teachers have to go on strike to get the basics for our students. #LAUSDstrike #UTLAStrong pic.twitter.com/hadiZYxHip

— United Teachers Los Angeles (@UTLAnow) January 17, 2019

UTLA charges that district superintendent Austin Beutner—a pro-charter school former business executive with no education background—is unqualified for the job. The district has 640,000 students, and while about 500,000 are enrolled in public schools, Los Angeles has more charter schools than anywhere else in the United States.

As negotiations resumed at City Hall on Thursday, with Los Angeles' Democratic Mayor Eric Garcetti mediating between the district and union representatives, strike supporters and participants shared updates from the streets with the hashtags #LAUSDStrike, #UTLAStrong, #WeAreLA, and #RedForEd.

Day 4 of #UTLAstrike (on Sunset Blvd) #RedForEd #UTLAstrong #MyDayInLA #ShareSocal @UTLAnow @WeAreCTA @CFTunion @NEAToday @UFT pic.twitter.com/mMVxEsrkz3

— Sean C. Abajian (@EdTechSean) January 17, 2019

Teachers, parents, students, @IATSE and socialists. We’re all in this together! #RedForEd #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady pic.twitter.com/01AsG6a3Pc

— DSA Los Angeles 🌹 (@DSA_LosAngeles) January 17, 2019

This @UTLAnow members explains how he’s striking for his students, not himself. #UTLAStrong #LAUSDStrike https://t.co/Ep1mHO3MUi

— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) January 17, 2019

Even though California is the world's fifth-largest economy, public schools across the state have struggled for decades to adequately serve students, particularly in communities of color and regions with low incomes.

The strike—which has cast a spotlight on rifts within the Democratic Party in the CONTINUE READING: Backing Teachers, Sanders Says LA Strike Exposes National Need for 'Revolution in Public Education'