Unions representing LAUSD teachers, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, custodians and special education assistants are threatening to throw a tantrum and not show up to work if they don’t get what they want.
Based on the abysmal education provided to LAUSD students, if the teachers went on strike, would anyone notice?
In the 2018-19 school year, just 44% of LAUSD students met the state’s English Language Arts standards. Just 33.47% met the state’s standards on mathematics. And remember, these are just the baseline proficiency standards.
As you can imagine, the results were even worse for Black and Latino students subjected to the mediocrity that is the Los Angeles Unified School District. Just 32% of Black students met the state’s English Language Arts standards and just 20% met the state’s mathematics standards. Just 38% of Latino students met the state’s English Language Arts standards and just 27.47% met the state’s mathematics standards.
For these kinds of pathetic, disgraceful results, the unions want across-the-board massive pay raises.
“SEIU Local 99 is asking for a 30% across-the-board raise and UTLA is asking for a 20% raise across the next two school years,” reports this newspaper.
The district has reportedly offered the SEIU workers a 15% raise and a 9% retention bonus, but they are threatening to disrupt service to students because they want even more.
The UTLA, which has thuggishly worked to crush opportunities for Black and Latino students to escape the mediocrity of UTLA-run schools and go to charter schools, is working with the SEIU in hopes of strong-arming LAUSD for more money.
LAUSD teachers and employees should show integrity, go to work like responsible adults and stop threatening LAUSD’s kids. If the unions don’t speak for them, they should stop paying dues to the unions.
The UTLA, specifically, has done enough to hurt kids in the district. If UTLA continues to pull these stunts, and prevails, LAUSD parents should continue to vote with their feet and pull their kids from LAUSD schools in search of better opportunities elsewhere.
Enough.
– Sal Rodriguez
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Based on the abysmal education provided to LAUSD students, if the teachers went on strike, would anyone notice?
abysmal – extremely bad; appalling.
For these kinds of pathetic, disgraceful results, the unions want across-the-board massive pay raises.
“SEIU Local 99 is asking for a 30% across-the-board raise and UTLA is asking for a 20% raise across the next two school years,”
70% increase in pay over the next 3 years.
And for this 70% pay raise the teachers union will dictate what they will teach our children, regardless of the will and desires of the children’s parents. ie. “Critical Race Theory” “transgender insanity” “LGBTQ+ lifestyle”.
Woke PTA: How The PTA Stopped Representing Parents And Became An Adjunct Of Public School Bureaucrats.
HOw much more proof do parents need, that NOT ONE OF THESE DAMNABLE Teachers unions, CARE ONE DIME about our kids!?!??!
Why stop at striking?,,,just totally disband your unions, quit your jobs and go home. Non-Union teachers could afford to be paid double, once the social, legal and administration, costs of your woke corruption is totaled up and erased from American society asnd educational institutions of socialist indoctrination. No education is better than the corrupting mind diminishing mind manipulations offered at progressive education, used to destroy our kids ability to creatively think and get rich.
The SEIU, the UTLA and the CTA (can’t leave them out) need to be run out of town on a rail. When I was in high school we had a principal, a secretary, a nurse a janitor, a groundskeeper and bus drivers besides the teachers. Students volunteered to help with office work. Everything went very smoothly. The school had a causal dress code that no one even considered breaking. We had the usual athletic teams, a band, FFA and most every other high school association that existed at the time. All of the extracurricular activities were funded by the school. All of this was possible without an administration larger than the teaching staff and those pesky unions.
Very well put.
Pity there is no american like Thatcher, willing to BREAK UNIONS!
Remember the Air Traffic Controllers Strike and how President Ronald Reagan dealt with it?
That was done during the same time as Thatcher was in power.. I am talking SINCE the mid-late 80s.
They also want a four day work week because five days is too stressful and doesn’t offer the quality of like they deserve. WOW. I bet every worker who tried this would be laughted out of the place
Based on the performance of the LA students in English and Math standards, they should get a reduction in pay or the boot out the door. Terrible results and they want a pay raise. Say it ain’t so. These low performance standards are fairly consistent across the board in the US. The public education system is in shambles.
That’s what SHOULD happen.. PINK SLIPS for the lot of them.
I can remember the huge howling screaming mobs every time performance based pay has been mentioned Notice I did not say discussed, as that is not possible). Even worse then the reaction to the words “charter schools”.
Well why don’t the teachers grow a brain and stop voting for democrats? Then they won’t have to suffer under inflation every time the democrat government fleeces them for more cash to steal and waste!
I think, at one time, unions served a very necessary function. One of the biggest reasons for the rise in unions was to improve working conditions for employees, for example, in the textile industry. An example of this which comes to mind is the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire of 1911 or 1912, I believe it was, in New York City. That fire ended up claiming the lives of some 144 young women and girls.
Nowadays, unions are more like thugs and hostage-takers. Union workers in the US are some of the most highly-paid folks in the world. I think the average UAW worker, for example, gets at least $70 per hour, great benefits, including cradle-to-grave healthcare, etc. And we wonder why so many American companies outsource their jobs?
Unfortunately, many unions simply aren’t happy with what they’ve got, and all they need do is throw a “tantrum” (i.e. go on strike), and management dutifully bends over and takes it, without lube, in the you know what.
For all that, I dare say, the average union worker does far less, getting far more, than their average non-union counterparts.
People should *insist* that there be radically higher proficiency scores from the students these union teachers teach, or no pay increase, simple as that. You’ve got it good, now do some actual work and make your students good at the 3 R’s. Show the world you’re worth your pay and benefits!
Agreed. UNIONS had a purpose in the late 1800s and early 1900s.. NOW DAYS They need to go.
This article mentions how poorly students are doing. This is not a result of just the last few years. this is thematic for decades. The article holds the present teachers, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, custodians and special education assistants solely responsible. These workers are just one factor of production, which include land, labor, and capital. The labor portion is more informatively described as workers and management. Different management operating with the same land (natural resources) and capital (capital goods and money) can produce different results. For example, Trump and Biden or Musk and his predecessors. Management in education has long abandoned the good old days when social promotion was criticized. It was followed by what I call anti-social promotion in which not only was academic progress ignored, but behavior and attendance hardly mattered. On top of that the culture war has been destroying education from pre-K to medical school.
The teacher’s union thinks of itself as indispensable and believes that the education system would collapse without them. My response is a thank you but a resounding no thanks. Fire everyone and hire new folks that will actually focus on the students and the student’s education and preparation for life following graduation.