Chicago Inc. Rahm Emanuel Dances for Corporate Money - Vote for Chuy!!!

Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago

Vote for Chuy!!!

Chicago Inc. Rahm Emanuel Dances for Corporate Money

Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago

Meet Chuy

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia has spent the past 30 years in public service as Chicago Alderman, Cook County Commissioner, and Illinois State Senator. Chuy has broad and diverse support from Chicagoans in neighborhoods citywide, who believe in his vision of a Chicago that works for everyone. Chuy is known for his integrity and longtime commitment to progressive politics and community organizing.

“It is time to take this city in a new direction,” said Garcia. This is no surprise to anyone who has watched the career of 58-year-old Garcia. He has rarely been comfortable with the status quo.

His new direction for the city includes violence reduction through more effective community policing, adding 1,000 new police officers, and greater support for public schools, including a democratically-elected school board that will be responsive to people in the neighborhoods.

Over the last three decades, he has advocated vigorously for progressive policies and political reform throughout the city and county and worked for better housing and schools in the Little Village community he represents on the Southwest Side.

Garcia is no stranger to elected office.  He’s been a Chicago alderman, a state senator and, in 2009, was elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners, which allocates the county’s $3.5 billion budget.

County Board President Toni Preckwinkle lost no time naming him her floor leader to help with her drive to enact a reform agenda.

As floor leader, Garcia successfully urged his colleagues to roll back an excessive one percent county sales tax imposed under former board President Todd Stroger—“The hated Stroger sales tax,” Garcia recalls with a smile.

Last year, Garcia resisted pressure from a small army of real estate lobbyists and passed a ban on their refusing to rent homes to people who rely on federally funded housing choice vouchers, including low income families, veterans, the disabled and others. This had become the practice of some suburban landlords.

Garcia also sponsored an ordinance that stopped county officials from cooperating with a Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs program that was identifying people accused of minor offenses who were suspected of being undocumented immigrants.

“Families were being torn apart,” Garcia recalls,  “and it also cost taxpayers money because some of the names on the list were there by mistake and they filed lawsuits.”

Early life

Garcia was born in Durango, in a picturesque village at the edge of the Sierra Madre in north central Mexico.  His father was a farm laborer who worked the fields of California, Kansas, and Texas under the US Government’s World War II-era bracero program. He sent much of his earnings home to support his family.  When Garcia was 10 years old, they gained permanent residency status and moved to Chicago, settling in the Pilsen/Little Village area where he still lives. Garcia later became a US Citizen.

His interest in politics started while attending St. Rita High School, inspired by the speeches of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr, and United Farm Workers Union leader, Cesar Chavez.

He got his first taste of political organizing when he and fellow students threw a picket line around the old Atlantic movie theater on 26th Street, which had become seedy and rundown. It closed, but was cleaned up and reopened later, which inspired the newly minted high school activists.

Garcia enrolled in the University of Illinois-Chicago and earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in urban planning.  While attending university he worked as a paralegal assisting immigrants and people with low incomes.

Political career

In 1983, Harold Washington was elected mayor, which spawned what some see as the golden age of progressive politics in Chicago. Harold named Garcia Water Commissioner and two years later he was elected alderman of the 22nd Ward, an election that would change the balance of power in the City Council.

Old guard stalwarts of the Chicago Machine had a majority in the council and outvoted Washington’s forces in furious clashes that became known as the “Council Wars.”  The 1986 election gave Mayor Washington the upper hand as a fresh batch of his supporters, including Garcia, were voted into office and started on the reform of city government.

Alderman Garcia won funds for construction of the Little Village Arch that sweeps across 26th Street in the 22nd Ward. He also pushed through an ordinance that helped immigrants fill out forms, write letters, and apply for green cards that allowed those with permanent resident status to work legally.

Garcia moved from the City Council to the Illinois Senate where he passed legislation limiting fees charged by notary publics to immigrants for assistance with legal matters. He also won passage of a bill requiring interpreters be made available to hospital patients who could not speak sufficient English to understand their treatment options.

Garcia’s time in Springfield came to an abrupt end when he was defeated in 1998 by an opponent who was supported by the Hispanic Democratic Organization, a group firmly aligned with the old guard patronage machine in Chicago politics.

With Jesus “Chuy” Garcia are his wife, Evelyn, left and daughter, Rosa right.

Garcia’s response was to plunge himself into community organizing. He founded, and was Executive Director of, the Little Village Community Development Corporation. This organization is now called Enlace, which means “connections.” At the beginning, Garcia was the only employee. Within a year, the organization had 27 full-time employees, 120 part-time workers, and an annual budget of $5 million.

Among other activities, Enlace raised money to upgrade community housing and sponsored night classes in subjects such as computer science, violence prevention, dropout prevention, and English as a second language.

On Mother’s Day in 2001, the group caused a sensation when a contingent— mostly mothers—went on a hunger strike to pressure the Chicago Public Schools administration to deliver on a promise for millions of dollars to construct a new high school.

The hunger strike went on for 19 days. The neighborhood eventually got its school—Little Village-Lawndale High School—which continues to serve the community today. The protests also resulted in changes to the administration of CPS, headed by Arne Duncan (now US Secretary of Education).

Garcia’s wife is Evelyn; they have three children, Rosa, Jesus, and Samuel.

Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago

Thu, Feb 19, 2015

Garcia: Rauner, Emanuel share agenda that slams ordinary residents, benefits wealthy allies

Wed, Feb 18, 2015

Commissioner Garcia calls for restoration of services for immigrants cut from Governor’s proposed budget

Wed, Feb 18, 2015

Garcia condemns proposed Rauner cuts as anti-Chicago assault on residents

All news

Fri, Feb 20, 2015 4:30 PM

Educators for Chuy

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Fri, Feb 20, 2015 8:30 PM

Chicago Comedians For Chuy Garcia

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Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago

What Chuy stands for

Safe neighborhoods

Increase trust and cooperation between residents and police through community policingLearn more

Elected school board

Give the school system back to the people through an elected school boardLearn more

Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago

I'll vote for Chuy

Karen Lewis, teachers' union president, gave Chuy Garcia top marks for mayor.

Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago

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Legislator Accountability Now! or No More Legislatively Neglected Schools. | BustED Pencils

Legislator Accountability Now! or No More Legislatively Neglected Schools. | BustED Pencils:

Legislator Accountability Now! or No More Legislatively Neglected Schools.

Before Christmas I posted an open letter to state senator Robin Voss and in that letter I proposed legislator accountability.  I received some positive feedback but not a single legislator (Republican or Democrat) drafted legislative language or even publicly acknowledged the idea.

At both AB #1 and SB #1 hearings multiple people provided testimony that pointed specifically to the legislature and that the individuals that comprise the legislature are the ones truly accountable to children in public schools.  The legislature creates the conditions in which public schools thrive or starve or simply suffer decades of purposeful neglect and budgetary torture.

Well, since nothing has happened on the legislator accountability front we now have another blatant piece of evidence—at least for education policy—that legislators must be held accountable for their constitutional responsibility to public schools.

Today,

The chief sponsor of the school accountability bill in the Assembly, Education Committee Chairman Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he’s now looking at requiring failing schools to choose from a variety of sanctions.

And the rest of the story should read,

Immediately after putting forth this proposal Representative Thiesfeldt was sanctioned under the legislator accountability act that forbids legislators from introducing 

Legislator Accountability Now! or No More Legislatively Neglected Schools. | BustED Pencils:

Fixing Our National Accountability System: Part 1 | The Crucial Voice of the People

Fixing Our National Accountability System: Part 1 | The Crucial Voice of the People:



Fixing Our National Accountability System: Part 1

“Mad Woman” found at http://fiftyfourandahalf.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/mad-woman.jpg and in homes across the country!

 The latest Marc Tucker publication from the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) is titled “Fixing Our National Accountability System.” I have so many issues with the title alone that it didn’t take long to decide that my responses would obviously require more than one blog.

First the words “Our National.” National means affecting the nation as a whole.

That IS the problem with our current U.S. education accountability law – No Child Left Behind (NCLB). That law put in place a test-based system that affected the whole nation in a negative way – no doubt about it.

Did it then go further and become a “federal” accountability mechanism? “Federal” means a union of states in which members agree to designate a central authority. Did NCLB do that? You bet it did! Our congressmen and women acted – and gave authority to the U.S. Department of Education to execute their law. NCLB is the federal educationlaw of the land controlling the use of high-stakes standardized tests for Fixing Our National Accountability System: Part 1 | The Crucial Voice of the People:

Doug Christensen on ESEA: Time for the Voices of Educators, Parents and Students to be Heard - Living in Dialogue

Doug Christensen on ESEA: Time for the Voices of Educators, Parents and Students to be Heard - Living in Dialogue:





Doug Christensen on ESEA: Time for the Voices of Educators, Parents and Students to be Heard 

 By Anthony Cody.

I first heard of Doug Christensen back in 2008, when he was still serving as Commissioner of Education in Nebraska. He was forced to resign because the locally-based assessment system he had developed there did not meet the mandates of No Child Left Behind — as described in this interview here. I connected with Christensen again a couple of years later, and we discussed the importance of local initiative and self determination. This week, I caught up with him again, as he has been on Capitol Hill, sharing his views with lawmakers wrestling with the reauthorization of ESEA. Here is what he has to say.

1. What are you telling our representatives in Congress this week in regards to ESEA?

Doug Christensen:  I support the notion that it is time for our federal government to reduce its “footprint” in the business of states. The constitution of each state clearly provides for and is responsible for the education of the youngest of each state’s people. It is not the role of the federal government. The role of federal government is to incentivize things like CTE, high poverty programs, safe and drug free schools and out-of-school learning centers.

Of course, this brings up the caveat so often cited that “if you are going to accept federal monies, you need to be accountable for it.” First, there is no such thing as “federal money.” The money with which the federal government has been entrusted belongs to the citizens and taxpayers in the states. Second, the federal government can not be a proxy for the citizens and taxpayers of any state. The accountability for the use of any public funding is back to the people who pay, i.e., local taxpayers. Federal accountability has too long displaced state and federal accountability. Third, of course states need to be accountable for their intentions in terms of what they will do with the monies received from federal grants and then be accountable for spending it for the purposes it is intended to serve. Beyond that, the accountability is back to the taxpayers of the state for the results in terms of student learning.

The best way for the federal government to reduce the footprint is to back up the testing requirement to grades 4-8-11 and let the states fill in the other grades with state or locally-determined assessment systems. As long as the requirement remains for every grade testing, there is no space for states and school districts to implement strategies designed to create more and better opportunities to learn for each child because that space is taken up by test prep, test taking and reporting. We can do better with our time and monies.

2. How has your experience in Nebraska shaped your perspective on standardized tests?

Doug Christensen: More than ever, I am convinced of the harm being done by standardized testing. All of the research confirms that standardized tests measure advantage and not learning. And, they measure content recall, not application or higher order learning skills. So much of the test prep time is reserved for going over and over content pieces so that students can recall them…….not learn them.

I am also convinced that if we do not bring assessment out of the curriculum and instruction of the classroom (rather than out of the standards), we will never really know what and how well students are learning. Assessment should never be an end of instruction. When it is, using the data is a “forensic” activity while assessment that is embedded in instruction is “anthropomorphic” and useful while instruction is going on. The classroom teacher is the person who is with the students as they are learning (anthropomorphic) and they need data but the kind that verifies their judgments about who is learning, what are they learning, who is not learning and what is it they are not learning. No standardized test can answer those questions, only Doug Christensen on ESEA: Time for the Voices of Educators, Parents and Students to be Heard - Living in Dialogue:

Big Education Ape: Twitter Call to Action! Tweet your trouble with NCLB rewrite! The Network For Public Education | http://bit.ly/1AjngfH

New Education Initiative Replaces K-12 Curriculum With Single Standardized Test | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

New Education Initiative Replaces K-12 Curriculum With Single Standardized Test | The Onion - America's Finest News Source:

New Education Initiative Replaces K-12 Curriculum With Single Standardized Test

NEWS • Education • News • ISSUE 51•07 • Feb 19, 2015

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WASHINGTON—Citing the need to measure student achievement as its top priority, the U.S. Department of Education launched a new initiative Thursday to replace the nation’s entire K-12 curriculum with a single standardized test.

According to government officials, the four-hour-long Universal Education Assessment will be used in every public school across the country, will contain identical questions for every student based on material appropriate for kindergarten through 12th grade, and will permanently take the place of more traditional methods such as classroom instruction and homework assignments.

“By administering one uniform test to our nation’s 50 million students, we can ensure that every child is evaluated by the exact same standard, regardless of background, age, or grade level,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan,

explaining that students will be able to take the test at any time between age 5 and 18. “It’s absolutely crucial for us to know where our kids stand, and eliminating the teaching model will provide us with the most affordable and efficient means of measuring student proficiency.”

“There is no better way to ensure consistency in America’s schools,” Duncan added.

The new test will reportedly cover all topics formerly taught in K-12 classrooms, including algebra, World War I, cursive penmanship, pre-algebra, state capitals, biology, letters of the alphabet, environmental science, civics, French, Newtonian mechanics, parts of speech, and the Cold War. Sources said students will also be expected to demonstrate their knowledge of 19th-century American pioneer life, photosynthesis, and telling time.

“By doing away with the overly complex program of full-length school days and lessons stretched out over 13 academic years, we can concentrate on increasing the reliability of our data and determine just how each student stacks up,” said Patrick Herlihy, an education researcher who helped design the test. “This is the best, most comprehensive way yet of holding our schools accountable.”

“This initiative also has the potential to help level the playing field,” Herlihy continued. “Kids in Mississippi, for example, will have literally the exact same educational opportunities as kids in Massachusetts.”

Officials confirmed the test will consist mostly of multiple-choice questions, though it will also include an essay section in which students will be able to choose from one of several prompts, ranging from “Describe the American system of federalism,” to “If I could be any animal in the world, I would be a…,” to “Write a book report on Lois Lowry’s The Giver.”

Jeff Escudero, a 10-year-old from Winamac, IN who plans to take the test and hopefully complete New Education Initiative Replaces K-12 Curriculum With Single Standardized Test | The Onion - America's Finest News Source:

CURMUDGUCATION: Newark Students Occupy District Offices #OccupyNPS

CURMUDGUCATION: Newark Students Occupy District Offices:



Newark Students Occupy District Offices

Social media is an amazing thing. I've been following events in Newark from the comfort of Pennsylvania. And it has been rather exraordinary.

Newark students have occupied Superintendent Cami Anderson's office. As reported by Bob Braun, who was there with the students during the first night (you could see him in the background on the video feed), the actual occupation was not too tricky. A board meeting was going on upstairs, and the office on the 8th floor was just open and unguarded.

The Newark students are not strangers to this brand of activism. They have previously occupied a board meeting and helped scare Anderson away from an appearance at AEI in New York.

That was Tuesday night. The district, as reported by Braun, was initially confrontational, then switched gears to expressing concern for the students and promised water and access to bathrooms.

By Wednesday, the district appeared to be playing a harder brand of ball. Police reportedly delivered this letter to parents of students in the office, telling them to get their kid the heck out of there.

That didn't happen. Students in the office were told there was pizza for them-- outside in a school bus waiting to take them to school. Much of the day involved tweets, phone calls, and other communications regarding food for the students that district officials insisted was not being held up but which clearly was not getting to the students. (The live streaming from inside the building made this kind of obfuscation hard for the district to pull off.)

Late in the evening, a group of clergy arrived at the building and told security that they were clergy and they were taking the food up to the students. They delivered the food, along with some words of support and encouragement, led some prayers for the students, the building, and the city, and then returned outside to a rally in front of the building where just about every civic leader in Newark was gathered, speaking to the press. The district claims it has been attempting to talk to the students and negotiate, but the students have not said a word that I've seen to indicate they've heard any such overtures. I'm pretty sure the threatening letters and the bus pizza gambit don't CURMUDGUCATION: Newark Students Occupy District Offices:

UltraViolet | Teach consent in high schools

UltraViolet | Teach consent in high schools:

Teach consent in high schools

This is HUGE: the U.S. Senate is going to vote on legislation that could help significantly reduce sexual assault and intimate partner violence in schools across America.

Women ages 16-24 are the most likely to experience sexual violence, and it's a huge problem especially on college campuses, where one in five survive sexual assault. In recent months, two state-wide education systems have passed mandatory affirmative consent rules for higher education campuses, and private colleges across the country are incorporating education about preventing sexual violence into student programming.

But students shouldn't have to wait to arrive at college to learn about consent--information about consent and healthy, respectful intimate relationships should be included right along with the crucial information about STIs and pregnancy teenagers are already learning in high school. And the Teach Safe Relationships Act will insure that age-appropriate, comprehensive information is presented to students in their high school health classes. Add your name.

Tell your Senator:

Cosponsor the Teach Safe Relationships Act and incorporate information about consent, sexual assault, and violence prevention in the national high school sex ed curriculum. UltraViolet | Teach consent in high schools:

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The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is joining UltraViolet's campaign to support this legislation and teach age-appropriate information about consent.

Mark Naison: "It's like the Gestapo, the education Gestapo!" - Citizen Combatants: Education Activism in New York State

Mark Naison: "It's like the Gestapo, the education Gestapo!" - Citizen Combatants: Education Activism in New York State:



Mark Naison: "It's like the Gestapo, the education Gestapo!"

Last summer Mark Naison and I walked together across the verdant lawn at Fordham University.  He wore a heavy black brace on his left knee and he was limping badly.  It was an old tennis injury, Mark explained, that he had exacerbated by playing hard even as his orthopedist had told him to rest.  For anyone else, that black brace would have been a heavy anchor.  For Mark it was a trivial inconvenience that he dragged along with him as he charged forward.  I could barely keep up. 

I had reached out to Mark as I began to explore the impact of education policy on public education in New York.  I asked, “If you were to think about the policies that you’ve witnessed, as they’ve been rolled out over the last few years, which would you say are the most deleterious, and why?”

“I would say school closings,” Mark replied.  “I think once you start closing allegedly failing schools rather than trying to help them, what it does is create a wave of fear that goes through every community where those schools are located.  It puts teachers under intolerable stress, principals under intolerable stress, and it eventually ends up on the backs of students.  I have story after story of teachers on medication for anxiety, depression.  What does it mean when teachers are constantly looking over their shoulders, if their students don’t get the test scores that are needed to keep the school open. 

“The principal loses, everybody loses.  Everybody is afraid of being displaced.  And you have no recourse [because of mayoral control]. The panel for education policy is totally controlled by the mayor.  They make the decision about whether or not the school is closed.  Your democratic input has no meaning.  So everybody’s voices are smothered.  One hundred sixty eight schools have been closed in New York City since 2007.  And many thousands of teachers have been pushed out. 

“But it’s not just the schools that are closed.  It’s the schools that aren’t closed that could be closed.  So there’s this polarized relationship.  You’ve been an administrator, you have to do evaluations.  It becomes loaded with tension and pressure in way I don’t think it ever quite was before. 

“I’m not saying that principals and teachers ever had an easy relationship, but the level of . . . [Mark thinks about how to phrase his comment].  I think many principals became abusers of teachers.  It’s one thing if you are secure.  But if you’re about to lose your job, everybody is going to keep passing it along.  So it goes from the principal to the teacher, to the kids, to the family.  And the result is kids who need most to be nurtured and loved are now being put under stress. 

“At the same time, the best things about school are being pushed out.  Art, music, history, trips, physical activity.  And it’s not happening in affluent schools because the scores are going to be good, because the PTAs raise money that can be used to hire art and music and technology teachers. 

“So there are terrible, tragic consequences in the Bronx, where recess is being used for test prep where you have the highest rates of obesity in the state.  It’s a nightmare—the fear, the wave of fear, and this way before anybody even knew what the Common Core was.  It started in 2007, when they started giving letter grades to [New York City] schools. 

“The other thing, this is all called ‘civil rights.’  This is supposed to be for equity.  The person responsible for the worst policies in NYC schools was a so-called civil rights lawyer named James Liebman from Columbia.  He was the first accountability officer in the Bloomberg administration.  He said that we have to figure out a way to make schools in low income communities perform.  And he figured out all these formulas for rating schools, based on test scores and other things.  So, here he is, in the name of what he thinks is equity, maximizing Mark Naison: "It's like the Gestapo, the education Gestapo!" - Citizen Combatants: Education Activism in New York State:

Florida Gov. Scott concedes that kids are over-tested, drops 11th-grade standardized exam - The Washington Post

Florida Gov. Scott concedes that kids are over-tested, drops 11th-grade standardized exam - The Washington Post:

Florida Gov. Scott concedes that kids are over-tested, drops 11th-grade standardized exam

Florida Gov. Rick Scott speaks Feb. 10, 2015, at Keeping the Promise: A Florida Education Summit, sponsored by former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future, at the Florida State University Alumni Center in Tallahassee, Fla. (Phil Sears/AP)

After years of calls by educators and parents for a reduction in standardized tests, Florida Gov. Rick Scott said Wednesday that yes, in fact, students in public schools in the state are being over-tested (such as in Duval County, where kids in K-5 take 14 assessments), and he issued an executive order eliminating one statewide 11th grade standardized assessment for English Language Arts.

The announcement by Scott was linked to a new report (see below) completed by Education Commissioner Pam Stewart, who recommended a testing reduction after doing an investigation into the number, frequency and purpose of standardized tests and whether  local assessments were assessed by state tests.

The Florida Department of Education issued a press release about the announcement, complete with quotes from Scott, Stewart,  Senate President Andy Gardiner and Speaker of the House Steve Crisafulli, who all praised one another for working together to come to the conclusion that they did. School reform critics were less delighted. Education activist Rita Solnet said, “While I appreciate the governor’s acknowledgement of over testing in Florida, parents are frustrated and want to know how this translates into immediate legislative action.”

Florida adopted the Common Core State Standards in 2010 and signed onto a consortium of states, known as PARCC, writing new standardized tests aligned to the standards. But as pushback against the Core initiative grew, Scott decided to “rebrand” them in Florida, changing the name to the Florida Standards and making some changes but keeping most of the Core intact. He also pulled the state out of PARCC and purchased a new test (from Utah, which is actually considering dropping that same test), calling it the Florida Standards Assessments that are supposed to be aligned to the Florida Standards. There are many other standardized tests given in the state as well.

The new report by Stewart detailed the number of standardized tests students take in different districts:

As indicated by districts, over half of Florida’s districts administered at least five or more assessments throughout the year, per grade in the grade spans of K-5, 6-8, and 9-12.

For grades K-5, counts include the Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading (FAIR) and alternative assessments for third grade promotion, when districts included them.

For grades 6-8, this count includes but is not limited to industry certifications and district end-of-year assessments. Some districts included industry certifications and end-of-year assessments in their response; others did not.

For grades 9-12, this count includes but is not limited to industry certifications, district end-of-year assessments, and AP assessments. Some districts included industry certifications and AP in their response; others did not.

More districts indicated that they assess more frequently in grades 9-12 than in other grade levels.

Actually, if you look at the county-by-county details, students in a number of grade levels were subjected to a number of standardized tests in the double digits. Take Duval County, for example. Students in K-5 take 14 assessments and students in grades 6 12 take as many as 23 per grade.

Here were Stewart’s recommendations, from the report:

1. Issue an Executive Order to suspend the grade 11 Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) for English language arts until legislation is enacted to eliminate the mandate.
   • Governor Scott will work with President Gardiner and Speaker Crisafulli and quickly issue an executive order, which will later be codified into law during Session. Since students meet their English language arts graduation requirement upon completion Florida Gov. Scott concedes that kids are over-tested, drops 11th-grade standardized exam - The Washington Post:

Teachers union takes first legal step towards strike that could close Los Angeles Unified schools:

Teachers union takes first legal step towards strike that could close Los Angeles Unified schools

By Thomas Himes, Los Angeles Daily News

POSTED: 02/18/15, 8:27 PM PST | UPDATED: 49 SECS AGO

2 COMMENTS

After seven months and 18 rounds of cantankerous contract talks, Los Angeles Unified administrators and leaders of the district’s 35,000-member teachers union finally found common ground Wednesday when United Teachers Los Angeles made its first legally required step toward a strike.

The so-called “impasse” was declared by UTLA, after negotiators emerged from talks Wednesday divided by more than $800 million per year, including 3.5 percentage points in pay raises and roughly $500 million in funding for additional teachers to reduce class sizes.

In a statement titled “LAUSD Agrees With UTLA’s Declaration of Impasse,” Superintendent Ramon Cortines welcomed the legal action as a chance to reach an agreement in front of a mediator.

“I’ve been disappointed and frustrated by the lack of progress toward an agreement,” Cortines said. “It’s my hope that the appointment of a mediator will lead to an expeditious settlement that ultimately supports our students and the district at large.”

A mediator will be called in if California’s top labor authority, the Public Employment Relations Board, agrees with UTLA’s case for an impasse. Should a mediator fail to resolve the conflict, a fact-finding panel will be formed with one UTLA representative, one LAUSD representative and one neutral party. While the panel will recommend settlement terms, neither side is bound by those recommendations.

“UTLA will not accept a piecemeal agreement that addresses only one or two issues, which fails to improve student learning conditions and educator working conditions,” UTLA stated. “We will continue our aggressive organizing campaign through every stage of this process.”

UTLA’s campaign includes a $3-million “strike fund,” which will fund efforts to organize teachers for the first work stoppage and school shutdown since 1989. After regional rallies that drew several thousand teachers last year and school picket lines earlier this month, UTLA’s capacity to strike will face its greatest hurdle Feb. 26 when union leadership plans to assemble “tens of thousands” of teachers in Grand Park for a “massive rally.”

Earlier this month, the district increased its offer by one percentage point to an immediate salary hike of 5 percent, including more than seven months of back pay. LAUSD would also increase the starting salary of freshman teachers to $50,0000 and fund $26 million in class size reductions.

The teachers union, however, is holding firm in its demands for an immediate 8.5 percent raise and 5,000 additional educators to reduce class sizes at an estimated budget cost of about $525 million.

Another issue raised by union leadership in its statement declaring impasse is a controversial new Teachers union takes first legal step towards strike that could close Los Angeles Unified schools: