Getting wise to union antics?

Two opinion articles worth a read

Summer is almost here, and the tide may finally be turning in the Los Angeles Unified School District. 

This week, two notable opinion pieces were published in area newspapers questioning the ongoing, union-orchestrated school closures, and challenging the LAUSD Board of Education to stand up to the United Teachers Los Angeles. 

The first is particularly notable due to its author: the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board. This week’s piece is worth the cost of admission (or, subscription, in this case). The title alone – Wake up, LAUSD. You have an urgent job to do: saving kids’ education – is enough to elicit cheers. 

In the piece, which catalogs the not-so-open reopening of LA schools, the Editorial Board doesn’t parse words: 

The amount of learning lost during the pandemic, especially among students who were already woefully behind, needs to be treated as an emergency – a disaster that requires immediate and lionhearted effort and resolve. That is not what’s been happening in the Los Angeles Unified School District. 

LAUSD’s repeated missteps have made a bad situation worse, and positioned the district behind others across the state. “Wake up, school board,” the piece goes on to say. “Your superintendent is leaving and you haven’t come out with a real plan for saving your kids.”

Another commentary worth reading this week came from an LAUSD parent frustrated enough by the role the United Teachers Los Angeles is playing in all of this to write in to the Los Angeles Daily News. In the op-ed, parent Mehrsima Moussavian makes the case that the union is a bad actor – not the “partner” it’s so often described as.  

… Our ‘labor partners’ have held students hostage for over 400 days, all so they can stack up more concessions that have little-to-nothing to do with ensuring a safe return to the classroom. 

The piece lists off a series of giveaways the union has extracted on the backs of students, all in exchange for nothing. While COVID case rates are down and the district has exceeded safety protocols, the United Teachers Los Angeles has yet to agree to a full, in-person return, even by fall. Union president Cecily Myart-Cruz even doubled down during her weekly address. “We will continue to push the envelope of what is possible because we can.”  

Parents are so fed up that they’ve started a petition calling for the abolition of the California Teachers Association. While adding one’s name to this list may indeed signal an unprecedented level of distrust in California unions, individual educators hold the power here. 

For teachers who recognize the harm unions like the United Teachers Los Angeles are inflicting on California kids, the most effective thing to do is drop union membership and take one’s dues money elsewhere. Teachers (and all public employees) interested in doing this should check out MyPayMySay.com. Telling the union, “enough!” is as simple as a few clicks on a screen.