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LA Mayor Calls Teachers Unions ‘Roadblocks’
Democratic mayors throughout the US are joining in the battle for ed reform against unions that LA’s Mayor Villaraigosa calls ‘an unwavering roadblock.’
Antonio Villaraigosa, once a labor organizer in Los Angeles and beloved by his union supporters who backed him in his elections to the State Assembly and his current mayoral office, is one of a growing number of Democratic mayors who have switched positions regarding unions in education. The Los Angeles Mayor describes the teachers union as an ‘unwavering roadblock’ to the improvement of public education in the city.
The US education system is widely considered to be broken and failing and as people fully realize the implications of this for the future city mayors are becoming increasingly willing to do whatever it takes to turn around their schools, including reassessing traditional alignments. Turning his back on his old union friends is not without personal risk for Mayor Villaraigosa or his colleagues in cities like Chicago and Boston.
The mayors risk turning labor friends into enemies, a lesson D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty learned in 2010 when he lost his seat in part because teachers were enraged by his school reforms. The unions, meanwhile, risk appearing recalcitrant and self-serving, further alienating a public frustrated by failing schools and growing cool to organized labor.
The mayors are seeking reforms like merit pay and the expansion of the public charter school program, while attacking restrictions that many feel are holding back education reform; the most important of which is tenure. In LA 97% of teachers get tenure after two years and the dismissal rate is under 1%. Few believe that less than 1% of teachers perform badly enough to warrant being dismissed.
The unions, already feeling under assault from Republican strongholds pushing through reform legislation and neutering tenure wherever possible, are unhappy at what they see as the betrayal of Democrat’s supporting the reformists in their battle, but the reformers will claim that they’re not fighting against the unions per se, but are fighting for the children being failed by the current system. They claim that the new ideas are untested and merely becoming popular because they’re seen as ‘trendy’.
Mayor Frank Jackson of Cleveland, who is also a Democrat, summed up the mayors’ position:
“I don’t think Democrat or Republican, pro-union or anti-union, public school or charter school,” said Jackson, who is in his second term. “I’m going to have a conversation about educating children. When you do that, all those other things don’t matter. ”
Wednesday
April 4th, 2012
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Comments
It’s nice to know that even the Democrats are waking up from the Kool-Aid.
Villaraigosa is nothing but an opportunists. He has supported unions in the past when it was politically expedient, but now that the winds of political aspirations are blowing the other way, he’s happy to dump them.
roadblocks to pet projects that won’t work and are ineffective? Roadblocks to stopping the step by step slow dismantling of quality public education into a private enterprise? Roadblocks to further wealth disparity by demanding fair wage for the work we do?
Damn straight we are, and proud. We are the education experts, and we will not let you ruin education so you can pander to wealthy donors and the uninformed.
How is the 97% number calculated? Is it that 97% of the teachers recommended for tenure received tenure? Is it 97% of the teachers hired two years ago received tenure? What is the source for the number? How do these numbers work with the statement that 50% of the teachers leave within 5 years?
What are you troubling people with all this insistence on “facts” and “statistics” and “truth.” Keep going, and someone’s going to accuse you of being a roadblock too.
“In LA 97% of teachers get tenure after two years and the dismissal rate is under 1%. Few believe that less than 1% of teachers perform badly enough to warrant being dismissed.” this has nothing to do with unions. At least in the states I’ve taught in you can dismiss a nontenured teacher for no reason. So, as I’ve said many times the problem is in the administration.
I think the author means the dismissal rate overall. I still agree with your contention that it doesn’t have much to do with unions, and can mostly be laid at the door of administrators.
This fight is not even a valid fight for the children. We as a country have the lowest test scores and rate lowest in the world and we just sit here debating about pay! People, it is time for action “The dam has burst!” I am so disgusted about this topic that I cannot believe professionals and parents aren’t demanding the education system to step up and provide the services of reading, writing and math to our children. Why education is not the main topic and issue in our country is embarrassing. The reform in education needs to be how to engage students in the classroom and allow teachers more instruction time in the class to interact and ask question on the subject! We know the education system can’t provide the services. They need to go! Charter schools need to start to come online and force public schools to perform or shut them down. Look at what we have young college adults out of school with loan debt, no jobs, credit card debt and no common sense to be innovators to contribute to our country and be entrepreneurs. Lets start new companies in our country, for the next generation and bring back the Apprenticeships. The people coming out of college have been cheated with their education too. Here is a new subject that the educators can teach entrepreneurship and self-reliance. People we are lost as a society wake up! Thank you!
You’re welcome, Kathy!
I like your enthusiasm.
Please share the source of our lowest ranking in the world. Your first statements make it hard to read the rest of your dirvel. Even if there is something of any significance in there your first far fetched statement taints it all. The fact is: from the Brookings institute, when any statistical insignificance is removed we rank in a group of countries tied for 5th. the difference in our numerical rank (any where from 17 to 23) and number 1 is like the difference between an A student with a 100% and an A student with a 93%. Statistical ranking means very little. Overall achievement means much more. Charter schools are a great idea. You do know they don’t have to educate every student correct. So those that value education will get a great education those that don’t will now have no place to go under you plan of getting rid of the evil public schools. I think you have fixed the problem.
you are wrong on so many levels. our test scores are not the lowers in the world by far.
Charter Schools are not an answer, they are an escape valve for parents who are afraid of the bad kids that stratifies society.
your entire post is basically a rant against the value of education, since all we need are jobs and business and entrepreneurship.
be sick at this topic all you want, but the working conditions of the teachers, are the learning conditions of your students.
[...] Villaraigosa — a Progressive’s Progressive if ever Southern California had one — has finally caved: Antonio Villaraigosa, once a labor organizer in Los Angeles and beloved by his union supporters [...]
Kathy please show me any evidence that Charter Schools do better than public schools. Please also show me a study or anything that proves that union involvement in schools are the reason why they are failing. The Union argument is a straw man put up by people who think that they can blame teachers for all the problems. You flippantly imply that public schools are failing because we simply choose to. You state (in so many words) That having a foot race with charters will “get us motivated.” Lady, that argument doesn’t even ask why the schools had problems in the first place. It supposes what the problem is (“public school teachers are just being lazy”) and comes up with a fairy tale solution. Perhaps you should stop reading the propaganda and actually LISTEN to the teachers in the field-you know the ones with first-hand experience with the problem. Maybe then you will start finding a real solution.
I think its great that the kids are first before paychecks! Get a clue the arm is cut off and bleeding it doesn’t need any more Band-Aids. Something needs to change now! I think its great that there are so many opinions but we need to try something now. We need to step out of the box or comfort zone and do something! Why can’t we focus on the charters schools? I think the education system has drained enough time and money for over 40 years. Nothing has changed the teachers conduction has not improved; children have not improved so why not? Lets try to go back to basics of reading, writing and math. I did not know I needed to bring graphs, charts and static’s, when it is common knowledge we are not educated and do rate the lowest in scores. I am a parent and I have been helping in the classroom and listening to the teachers (front line workers) for six years. I have made the choice to care. I have given five days a week 4-5 hours a day. I have worked in the office, classroom, and aids office and yes maintenance areas to help in my area. I have a voice and I will make it heard. Kids are first with me. It is time to stop debating and we need action! We can all agree that kids need to be educated, teachers need to have control of the classroom and teach, but there is no plan, no direction and I believe if we take a chance and make more charter schools we can start something new. We cannot keep throwing money at the same problem and hope for a solution. We can see its not working! I agree with your statement “but the working conditions of the teachers, are the learning conditions of your students. “ That’s why we do need change in a different direction, Thank you!
Kathy, you are so far off its hard to even discuss this. Once again, “common knowledge we are not educated and do rate the lowest in scores” hardly common since its false. Lower than Mongolia? Lower than Bolivia? Lower than who? According to you lowest in the world. There is not one study that shows this, so your common knowledge is a flat out lie or exaggeration. Either way not a good way to influence policy. What should be common knowledge and isn’t is that charter schools may turn away students for reasons public schools cannot. Are you suggesting we don’t educate every child? If you look on this very website an article states that Texas has identified 5% of their schools as failing. If we assume that even in the rest of the country the rate is double that is 10%. That means we are not failing in 90% of our schools. Can we do better? Yes. Is it as dire as you say? Hardly. And your call for action, when we can’t even determine what action works is dangerous. If it was as dismal as you portray doing anything may be better. But with 90+% of our schools not failing, doing anything just for the sake of doing something could just lead us to where your stories are actually true.
you are the most dangerous type of person in this country
the type with an “opinion” that you spout as fact. you know nothing about the realities of how to educate a child, yet spout off things that make no sense as “common knowledge”
and when people ask you to provide research based facts (the only kind we can rely on) you spout off more garbage.
Dangerous because people who think like you are already tearing down education.
Kathy is not very educated. Our best suburban schools score just as well as Finland. Our inner city and rural schools score low and it pulls the whole average down. Instead of creating smaller class sizes in the inner cities, we are making the classes bigger and then firing teachers when they can’t meet test scores. Like teachers are superheroes who can control everything. In the rest of the world, students are evaluated on their test scores but now here. Oh no! America is just going its own way- straight down! Who the hell would want to teach now. Let’s see how those test scores go in a few years.
Stumbled across this article…interesting reading.
What is the root of the education problem? Well, it’s not unions, it’s not teachers, it’s not even those big bad administrators who (wink wink) are just there for the coffee and a big fat paycheck that they didn’t earn.
It’s about expectations. We as a nation have decided that EVERY child will receive an education…and not just an education up to 3rd grade, or 5th grade, or even middle school…EVERY child will receive a high school education! Now, add illegal immigrants to the mix. Students that have special mental, emotional and/or physical needs. Homeless students. Students who are severe behavior problems. Our schools are REQUIRED to educate them all to the 12th grade level, and this can take an increasingly large amount of resources and funding to accomplish.
We have the NAEP, the TIMSS, and other tests that measure our students against the rest of the world’s kids. Here’s a better idea: let’s test our kids with severe special needs, kids with significant physical or situational impairments, with other countries’ kids.
If you can even FIND those children in the other countries to take that test, I guarantee you U.S. children would be first on those tests by a landslide. We take the tired, the poor, the weak and the downtrodden, and we educate them ALL.
Our best and brightest do just as well as other countries’ kids. Our most significantly cognitively and physically challenged kids would do as well or better than any other country. The key is the “average” kid – who is the average kid? For us, it’s everybody. For many other countries, the “average” has ruthlessly pared the tired, the weak, the physically unable to perform away from the group.
Do your research. Take a look at what is expected of a typical public high school. Better yet, sit with a principal for a week – heck, sit with a central office person in many situations – and you’ll see the Sisyphean tasks ahead of them. And by the way? Yes, I was educated in a public school.
This teacher reform is the biggest cluster_ _ _ _ in history! You have all these people just making up B.S. reform. Of course all of the people know nothing about education. Arne Duncan was a basketball player who can’t even speak correctly. Bill Gates? What does he know? Nothing! But in America money equal powers and this will just quicken the decline. We deserve to go down now. Do you think a rich man could do this in Germany or a real country? No way! In “intelligent” countries they let experts in education like Diane Ravitch design school reform, but not here. In America they just let rich guys try anything they want. Once we lose the public schools, it will be game over, and I suspect that is where we are right now. Sad…
[...] will compete for the anti-union vote, as evidence by the Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s defection from his old union brethren. Villaraigosa, who Lasken claims is seeking a cabinet post in the next [...]