We are the ones who will save public education in Los Angeles. On May 24, more than 12,000 of us gathered in Grand Park for the All In for Respect rally in the spirit of teacher rebellions happening across the country.
As youth movements catapult school issues powerfully onto the national stage, now educator strikes are ripping through the country—making this arguably one of the most important moments in U.S. history for public education. West Virginia, Puerto Rico, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona. School funding, teacher salaries, privatization, learning conditions, learning supplies, working conditions, healthcare, pensions—they are all now front and center in the national debate.
On a weekend a couple of months ago, I was walking out of a store on Jefferson Boulevard in southwest LA when I heard a couple of familiar voices: Dorsey High School students Tayah Hubbard and Christabel Ukomadu.
While many California Democrats will say publicly that they oppose Janus, privatizers like Antonio Villaraigosa and his longtime colleague Marshall Tuck — both running for state office in 2018 — will do the bidding of their financial backers and secretly push to undermine teacher unions and our right to collectively bargain.
We don’t have to look too far back into 2017 to be reminded of the importance of our connections with each other, in schools and across schools, and the importance of our union to all of us. Very early in the morning on Tuesday, December 5, we started getting calls and texts from members who were at schools near the Creek fire in Sylmar and from even more schools that were affected dramatically by the air-quality issues resulting from the fire.
How dare the district spend two years threatening our healthcare! How dare LAUSD threaten to punish educators for LAUSD’s financial dilemmas when the district has done little over the past few years to address California being 46th out of 50 states in per-pupil funding.
We live in trying times. We have witnessed tremendous natural disasters, surely exacerbated by global warming, and incredible human violence, which tears at our souls. With each passing day, the importance of schools is reemphasized, the importance of engaging young people and helping to instill confidence in navigating a complicated world.
At the core of UTLA’s strategic plan is a very basic concept: If public education is to survive and thrive in Los Angeles, it is time for us to call the question on why our schools are being starved. It is simply not acceptable that California, as the fifth largest economy in the world, stands at 46th among the states in per-pupil funding.
Summer is an essential time for relaxing and recharging—but the reality is that many UTLA members find ways to keep working. From teaching summer school to retooling lesson plans or taking learning vacations at historic sites, the whole “summers off” thing may be an outdated concept.
Educators are wonderful, you are wonderful. Congratulations on completing another academic year. Every year that you finish, you have touched that many more lives, have shaped the future more indelibly, and have strengthened our profession for the long-term through your accomplishments.
