After eight years without a raise, teachers in Los Angeles overwhelmingly approved a new contract.
Howard Blume reports:
“An overwhelming majority of teachers union members voted to ratify a three-year contract with the Los Angeles Unified School District, the union announced Friday.
“More than 97% of 25,407 educators who cast ballots favored the pact, which includes a 10% raise over two years.
“Union members also ratified a separate benefits package that retains key current features of employee health plans.
“The collective bargaining agreement is good for educators and students,” union President Alex Caputo-Pearl said in a statement.
“The Board of Education must give formal approval to the deal, which is widely expected as soon as next week.
“The raise is phased in: 4% is retroactive to July 1, 2014; 2% retroactive to Jan. 1, 2015. Pay goes up another 2% on July 1, and the final 2% on Jan. 1, 2016. Teachers have the right to negotiate for an additional raise in the third year of the contract.
“Teachers had gone without a pay increase for eight years, although they continued to receive salary boosts based on years of experience and additional eligible education credits.
“During the recent recession, teachers had agreed to temporary salary reductions. Still,thousands of educators and other employees were laid off.
“The agreement includes funding to reduce the size of classes in key subjects or grade levels. Schools may also get more counselors, although the maximum ratio of students per secondary school counselor is still 500 to 1.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
But what’s in the “fine print”?
What is the “union’s” name?
UTLA = United Teachers Los Angeles.
Also in the article:
“United Teachers Los Angeles made one notable concession from an earlier position. It accepted three possible final ratings for teachers: exceeds standards, meets standards or below standard.
The union had wanted to keep the practice of using two possible ratings. Accepting the district’s alternative could result in the district retaining control over millions of dollars in federal aid tied to evaluation standards.”
Sounds like test scores and stack ranking to me.
Yes, let’s see the fine print.
😎
United Teachers Los Angeles (commonly abbreviated “UTLA”).
A unique feature of UTLA is is a “merged” union, in that is both…
… an affiliate of AFT (& by extension AFT’s state affiliate CFT)
and
… an affiliate of NEA (& by extension NEA’s state affiliate CTA
If you’re part of UTLA, you must opt to be a member of either, or both (dual member status, which I am… you have to pay double the dues).
As for the contract, I voted “Yes”—the 10% raise was long overdue) but will work to make sure the next contract prioritizes class size reduction/staffing, even if that means that next contract includes just a minimal raise, or no raise next time out. (You can draw the inference that this contract did not prioritize class size reduction / staffing.)
The promise of LAUSD Board Member Steve Zimmer’s classic speech calling for class size reduction will have to be fulfilled in the future.
Here’s Zimmer’s speech, from almost two years ago (June 2013):