Scam exposed: UTLA wants $ for troubled students to fund 17.6% raise

by Chris Reed | August 8, 2014 8:00 am

LCFF-logo-179x179When Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Local Control Funding Formula for state schools into law in the summer of 2013, it was billed as the biggest education reform [1]in California in decades. The premise of the law — and the mainstream media coverage of the law — was that this advanced Brown’s goal of getting more help to the struggling students who need it most. Districts with more such students would get higher state funding, and the funding was supposed to “follow” and directly benefit these challenged kids.

But if you’re a CalWatchdog reader, we loudly raised[2] the obvious question[3]: The biggest change in school funding formula in decades wasn’t going to happen without the support of the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers. So why were the teacher unions so supportive? Because they believed in their ability at the school district level to make sure additional funding went to teacher compensation — not to programs helping English-learners.

Now, the state’s largest local teachers union is making this power play[4] clear during contentious contract negotiations:

Concluding a second round of contract talks Wednesday, teachers union leaders released a statement … . United Teachers Los Angeles said district administrators explained that educators could receive either smaller class sizes or be “compensated fairly,” but not both.

“We don’t buy it,” the statement says.  “Millions of extra dollars have already flowed into the district as part of the state’s new funding formula.”

The teacher’s union wants a 17.6 percent pay raise, while district officials say they can only afford a 6.64 percent across-the-board raise and 2 percent bonus.

Union power play disguised as reform

That’s from the Los Angeles Daily News.

So much for the alleged noble intentions of the Local Control Funding Formula. It was a cover for getting more unencumbered dollars into district budgets so they could go to teacher compensation. It was how Jerry Brown pacified the CTA and CFT as he moved into re-election mode.

My Grand Unified Theory of California Politics is once again borne out:

The key to figuring out how California works is understanding that by far the most powerful forces in state politics are the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers and the 500,000 people they represent and collect dues from.

So when a Los Angeles Unified teacher feeds semen to his students and has to be bribed to quit, instead of enacting rules to make it easier to fire classroom sexual predators, the Legislature passes a fake reform that would have actually increased protections for pervert teachers.

So when a judge says districts must follow a state law requiring student performance be part of teacher evaluations, instead of compliance, we see the state cancel the standardized tests whose results could have been used against bad teachers.

And now here is the latest example of teacher unions’ hegemony in California: A much-trumpeted education reform enacted earlier this year is being hijacked in brazen fashion, further propping up the teacher-favoring education status quo.

That’s what I wrote in October[5] about the CTA, the CFT and the Local Control Funding Formula. Now the United Teachers Los Angeles has confirmed the most cynical possible interpretation of Jerry Brown’s alleged education reform.

It’s just another payoff to the teachers unions who dominate Sacramento as thoroughly and destructively as the railroad barons did in the early 20th century.

When will the Sacramento media notice the open hijacking of the LCFF?

Who knows. They never thought to ask why the teachers unions would support a change.

Endnotes:
  1. education reform : http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/lc/
  2. we loudly raised: http://calwatchdog.com/2013/11/13/gov-browns-ambitious-school-reform-morphs-into-union-payoff/
  3. obvious question: http://calwatchdog.com/2014/01/17/cta-wins-brown-lobbies-to-weaken-own-school-funding-reform/
  4. power play: http://www.dailynews.com/article/20140806/NEWS/140809652
  5. wrote in October: http://calwatchdog.com/2013/11/13/gov-browns-ambitious-school-reform-morphs-into-union-payoff/

Source URL: https://calwatchdog.com/2014/08/08/l-a-teachers-union-exposes-truth-about-local-contral-funding-formula/