Charter Schools, Not Pay or Class Size, Are Target of L.A. Teachers’ Strike

The United Teachers Lost Angeles (UTLA) and the school board of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) will resume negotiations on Thursday at noon as the ongoing teachers’ strike enters its fourth day.

Officially, the strike is about teachers’ demands for smaller class sizes, additional support staff, and a 6.5% pay raise retroactive to last year (the district is offering 6%, phased in over the next two years).

But unofficially, the strike is about the unions’ effort to stop the growth of charter schools, most of which are not unionized and which are often favored by parents in minority neighborhoods who are frustrated with failing local traditional public schools.

EdSource reports:

Central to the concerns of teachers and union leaders at Los Angeles Unified is the argument that the growth of charter schools in the city has come at the expense of dollars for district schools and the teachers working in them.
…
Key to the bitter dispute: Charter schools, which enroll about a fifth of students in Los Angeles Unified, have contributed to a loss of $600 million annually that otherwise would benefit students in district schools, according to union officials, largely because of fixed costs that can’t be reduced even if there are fewer students. Charter backers have pushed back on those figures.

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