Teachers organizations from across the state of California have formed an alliance to fight for genuine School reform.
CALIFORNIA: 8 Teacher Union Locals Unite Against the Trump/DeVos Agenda, Fight for Public Schools through Collective Bargaining, Community Power
United around common struggles and a shared vision, The California Alliance for Community Schools is a groundbreaking coalition of educator unions from 8 of the largest cities in California, representing more than 50,000 educators. The alliance officially launches tomorrow, Thursday March 23 and includes: Anaheim Secondary Teachers Association, Oakland Education Association, San Bernardino Teachers Association, San Jose Teachers Association, San Diego Education Association, United Educators of San Francisco, United Teachers Los Angeles and United Teachers Richmond.
All 8 unions are uniting around statewide demands, through local bargaining as well as legislation, for more resources in schools, charter school accountability, lower class sizes and other critical improvements. Most of the locals are in contract bargaining or are interested in organizing around these key issues. The alliance plans to expand to include other labor and community partners.
As California faces a statewide teacher shortage, school districts issued more than 1,750 pink slips for educators last week. Trump released his proposed federal budget, which slashes funds for disadvantaged children, afterschool programs, teacher trainings and other vital services. Trump wants to spend $1.4 billion to expand vouchers, including private schools, and would pay for it from deep cuts to public schools. Voters in California have twice rejected voucher plans.
“We are reaching a state of emergency when it comes to our public schools,” said Hilda Rodriguez-Guzman, an Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment member and charter school parent since 1994. “We must support and reinvest in public education. I join educators in the fight for well-resourced, transparent, accountable, and democratically run schools, at the bargaining table and beyond.”
All 8 unions will use the power of bargaining and statewide organizing to fight for:
Lower class sizes
Resources for high-needs schools and students
Shared decision-making at local school sites, critical to student success
Charter school accountability
Safe and supportive school environments
The first significant step is the launch of the bargaining platform and petition, which includes statewide demands and specific contract demands for each local union. The petition reads:
“As educators in large urban school districts across California we face many of the same challenges. We are particularly concerned about disinvestment in schools and communities, especially those with the greatest needs; educational policies that discourage authentic teaching and learning; and the rapid expansion of privately managed and unregulated charter schools at the expense of our neighborhood schools.”
We applaud the work of these unions, who are fighting back the Trump/DeVos agenda and standing together with their students and communities to reinvest in public education.
To find out more, contact each union for more information:
Anaheim: Grant Schuster, CTA State Council Representative on ASTA Executive Board, schusters3@charter.net, (562) 810-4035
Los Angeles: Anna Bakalis, UTLA Communications Director mailto:abakalis@utla.net, (213)305-9654
Oakland: Trish Gorham, OEA President, oaklandeapresident@yahoo.com, (510) 763-4020,
San Diego: Jonathon Mello, mello_j@sdea.net, (619) 200-0010
San Francisco: Mathew Hardy, Communications Director, mhardy@uesf.org, (415) 513-3179
Richmond: Demetrio Gonzalez, UTR President, president@unitedteachersofrichmond.com, (760) 500-7044
San Jose: Jennifer Thomas, SJTA President, jthomas@sanjoseta.org, (408) 694-7393
San Bernardino: Ashley Alcalá, SBTA President, ashleysbta@gmail.com, (909) 881-6755
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THE CALIFORNIA ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
We are a coalition of California parents, community, educators, and students united in our commitment to transforming public education in ways that contribute to a more just, equitable, and participatory society.
Together, we are fighting for well-resourced, community-centered, publicly funded and democratically run schools that prepare our students with the intellectual, social, and emotional skills necessary for success in a changing and often turbulent world.
Our Platform for The Schools All Our Students Deserve
1. Low Class Sizes: Quality instruction for all our students depends on limiting the number of students in a class. Lowering class sizes improves teaching and learning conditions leading to growth in student achievement and positive social interactions.
2. Adequate Resources for All Schools with Additional Resources for Our High Needs Schools and Students: All schools and students deserve adequate levels of funding and support, including but not limited to quality early childhood education programs, lower class size, lower Special Education caseloads, additional educators, after-school tutoring, counselors, nurses, certificated librarians, and other resources to address our students’ academic, emotional, and social needs. Schools and students with the highest need should receive additional funding and support. Site based governing bodies consisting of democratically selected staff, parents, students, and community partners should be responsible for deciding how such additional supports are to be used.
3. Shared Decision-Making at Our Local Schools: The needs of a school are best addressed by the members of the school community. Site based governance by democratically selected stakeholder representatives is a critical component for school and student success. Districts and unions should provide joint trainings to fully empower these bodies.
4. Charter Schools Accountable to Our Communities: All schools receiving public money must be held accountable and be locally and publicly controlled. Unfortunately, many privately run, under-regulated charter schools drain needed resources from neighborhood schools, are not fully transparent in their operations, and fail to provide equal access to all students. Common sense standards and adequate oversight are necessary. New charter schools should not be approved without ensuring accountability and transparency and without a comprehensive assessment of the economic and educational impact on existing public schools.
5. Safe and Supportive School Environments: All students at publicly funded schools, regardless of ethnicity, gender, economic status, religion, sexual orientation, and immigration status, have a right to an academically stimulating, emotionally and socially nurturing, and culturally responsive environment that recognizes and addresses the many stresses that affect student performance and behavior. Adequate trainings and supports for restorative justice programs must be provided as an alternative to punitive disciplinary programs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I taught in California for a few years and got laid off along with 30,000 other teachers at the height of the recession. The problem with California schools is primarily the funding. The property tax system ensures that California schools will forever be underfunded. However, I give Gov. Brown credit for being able to push through a referendum that steers more income tax money to schools. But I really do think that is more of a band aide cure. Once the economy goes to Hell again, (Which it will someday) watch for massive layoffs again.
I taught in the UC system and County Schools (grades 7-12). In the ’90s riff notices came every spring only for everyone to be re-hired for the following year. We had a strong union with robust leadership. Following the election of Bill Clinton to the White House the radical Reaganomics and the strength of neoliberal economics expanded as never before. Funding was reduced, programs cut, etc. Then came NCLB. I took it for four years and left the teaching profession. Now ESSA and DeVoz and a lunatic US president will continue to squeeze budgets for public schools as privatization by the rentier class moves forward. I applaud the actions of these unions (and it’s clear by the locations sited what the majority population of public school children are taking the greatest of the brunt to eliminate public schools altogether). It isn’t prop 13 that’s hurting public schools but the top down policies from the federal government to the states. Especially California as it is the most populous state. I would suggest new leadership in NEA/AFT nationally and a concerted effort of non-compliance with ESSA and the coming DeVos scripture. The current efforts are considerable and I encourage ALL teachers fight for public education by refusing to implement those policies detrimental to learning and the diminishing of educational priorities with respect to Brown vs. BOE.It’s time for the echo chamber of disillusionment to stop and move forward to re-invent your profession or move on and re-invent yourselves and move on. I here from many teachers that if all teachers went on strike, then they’d just be replaced. Look what Karen Lewis did in Chicago. It was the teachers’ support of the CTU that brought them needed gains in their districts. It’s time for a statewide teachers’ strike in California.
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Wonder if our paths crossed in those Ca. days…where are you in Hawaii? I used to live on Maui…also on University Ave. in Honolulu…good decision you made, I am still in the same system…were you in Westwood?…alo-HA.
Could have met at various meetings. I was BioChem, Enviro Ethics, Planning, and 19th Century poetry . So, taught in a few departments in UC system. Undergrad,I lived on University Ave. across from Kuykendall Hall, Ala Wai, Sunsent- Rocky Point, Makaha. I gave up Ivy league options, to my parents’ chagrin as, growing up surfing, UH seemed a good choice. But they just started the med school their and I moved back to Mainland for grad and post grad-post doc studies. I surfed Maui and worked at the old Pioneer Inn across from Banyan Tree Park in Lahaina, long before Maui become over populated with so many people from the San Joaquin Valley. Westwood? I lectured at UCLA often. I think I said west side. Meaning we live on the west side of O`ahu in kane aki heiau, an ancient location way up near the top of the mountain with a few homes there. Where do you teach?
Good to see unions collaborating. Too bad they are not getting actual or symbolic support from other unionized workers in California.
This is a very important statement. California’s unions and cities are divided on issues for several reasons too numerous to reiterate here. Unions feel they would lose membership if they joined the fight against vouchers; cities have forever made the greatest mistake of competing rather than cooperating. As a former city and regional planner, I have witnessed many a meeting of the Counsel of Government (COG). I saw more plans of commercial cooperation denied by the COG’s which are controlled by those with the most revenue. Same goes for public school districts. Now that i’m retired in Hawaii, I find a very weak teachers’ union being controlled by a BOE. All the members of the BOE here are bankers. It’s all about money for large returns rather than standing as advocates for public education at the State House.
Exactly why I moved back to the mainland…all the BoA guys ran too much of everything in Hawaii…seems as though things have not changed. Money keeps talking, yelling.
Good for them. I support labor unions generally – both my parents were in one and my middle son is in one and I was in at one period of my life, but the main reason I support teachers unions is self-interest. My son attends a public school and teachers unions are often the only advocates for public schools who are powerful enough to lobby government.
This is just fact in Ohio. There will be 14 ed reform groups lobbying for charters and vouchers and ONE group working on behalf of public schools and that one group is a teachers union.
It’s simple for me. Our interests align. They’re not “the same” but they align. If other groups advocated for public schools I would support those groups too, but they don’t, so I don’t.
This is very encouraging. I taught in California for 25 years and my concern was and continues to be that teachers did not organize and speak out.
These unions should join with parent and social justice groups that support public schools across the state. There is strength in numbers, and they have shared goals. Also, these other stakeholders are less likely to be dismissed by the powers that be as trying to protect their own interests.
Totally agree with the need to join up with groups like Huddle and Indivisible. We have the ability to make a difference in a way that was not possible before because the general public had little to no understanding of the consequences of privatizing public education.
This may be an essential group to counter CCSA and their corporate “Democratic Party” candidates they endorse in this state.
The split between Progressive Dems and Corporate Dems is the big fault line in the Golden State. Michelle Rhee and Kevin Johnson are the face of the later out here and rely on GOP support for their goals as does CCSA.
I wish this new collaboration luck and I hope utilizing intelligent leadership, they will be able to articulate what is at stake when they reclaim the Progressive mantle for PUBLIC schools and institutions.
If they are unsuccessful, all is lost in the battle against the Ed Reform’s huge money re-branding out here in the Golden State..
What happened to all the Lotto money that’s brought in? Another Ca political scam. When it was up on the ballot the push was education would not get cut. It would be a big deal for education. So the politicians did their normal end around and froze it. Why hasn’t there been more on this from the news and outrage from the districts and teachers a long time ago and before we hit bottom?
Alpha…hardly anyone even asks about both the Lotto money and also the American Indian casinos all over Ca. which are mandated to give a percentage of their large ‘take’ for funding of public schools. Have asked my local legislator many times and I get a glassy eyed stare. We who are old enough to remember how these gambling institutions were sold to our state with the agreement that this would keep our public schools afloat, are few. But thanks for asking. Maybe someone here knows the real answer.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
If you are a teacher and you belong to a teachers’ unions that is not on this list, let your local know and urge them to join.
The first reform that’s urgently needed is the reform of charter schools to make them financially accountable to the taxpayers whose money they today spend in secret, because just as there is really no such thing as a “public charter school,” there’s no such thing as a “non-profit charter school.
The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a report that, because of their lack of accountability to the public, charter schools pose a risk to the Department of Education’s goals. The report finds that “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting the goals” because of financial fraud and the artful skimming of tax money into private pockets.
Even the staunchly pro-charter school Los Angeles Times (which acknowledges that its favorable reporting on charter schools is paid for by a billionaire charter school advocate) complained in an editorial that “the only serious scrutiny that charter operators typically get is when they are issued their right to operate, and then five years later when they apply for renewal.” Without needed oversight of what charter schools are actually doing with the public’s tax dollars, hundreds of millions of tax dollars that are intended to be spent on educating the public’s children is being siphoned away into private pockets and to the bottom lines of hedge funds.
The Washington State Supreme Court, the New York State Supreme Court, and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled that charter schools are not public schools at all because they aren’t accountable to the public since they aren’t governed by publicly-elected boards and aren’t subdivisions of public government entities, in spite of the fact that some state laws enabling charter schools say they are government subdivisions. That’s common sense to any taxpayer: Charter schools are clearly private schools, owned and operated by private entities. Nevertheless, they get public tax money but have virtually no public record accountability of what they do with the tax money they divert from genuine public schools.
There are many tactics used by many charter school operators to reap profit from their schools, even the so-called “non-profits”, such as private charter school boards paying exorbitant sums to lease building space for their school in buildings that are owned by corporations that are in turn owned or controlled by the charter school board members or are REIT investments that are part of a hedge fund’s portfolio. There are many other avenues of making a hidden profit from operating private charter schools.
In addition to the siphoning away of money from needy schools, reports from the NAACP and ACLU have revealed facts about just how charter schools are resegregating our nation’s schools, as well as discriminating racially and socioeconomically against American children of color; and, very detailed nationwide research by The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA shows in clear terms that private charter schools suspend extraordinary numbers of black students. Based on these and other findings of racial discrimination in charter schools, the NAACP Board of Directors has passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion and for the strengthening of oversight in governance and practice.
Therefore, in order to assure that tax dollars are being spent wisely and that there is no racism in charter schools, charter schools should minimally (1) be required by law to be governed by school boards elected by the voters so that the charter schools are accountable to the public; (2) be a subdivision of a publicly-elected governmental body; (3) be required to file the same detailed public-domain audited annual financial reports under penalty of perjury that genuine public schools file; and, (4) be required to operate so that anything a charter school buys with the public’s money should be the public’s property.
Those aren’t unreasonable requirements. In fact, they are common sense to taxpayers and to anyone who seeks to assure that America’s children — especially her neediest children — are optimally benefiting from public tax dollars intended for their education. But, after the internal scams of charter schools become exposed to taxpayers through routine public reporting, the charter school industry will dry up and disappear, and the money that the charter school industry has been draining away from America’s neediest children will again flow to those in need.
Love your optimism Scisne…but here in LA it is far from reality. After the coming July election which is hugely funded to support Medvoin and Gonez, the charter supporter candidates, and assuming as most here do, that they will win with the deep pockets of Broad and Buddies, we will have only one TRUE public school supporter on the LAUSD BoE. Scott Schmerelson consistently votes for public schools…the other 6 cannot/will not be counted on to rock the charter boat that is now firmly embedded in the Superintendent’s office and in the LAUSD corporate culture. A fait accompli.
Wish everyone had supported Dist 2 teacher, Lisa Alva, to beat the mendacious Broad/Deasy puppet, Monica Garcia. C’est la vie.
BTW…watch for Broad’s ‘Great Public Schools Now’ to take over 50% of LAUSD very rapidly, and they will join with CCSA to privatize these schools for profit….leading to the bankruptcy of the entire district in the next few years. GREAT profits to made on all that real estate…pennies on the dollar. What is the opposite of ‘it only hurts when I laugh’…maybe ‘it really hurts when I cry’.
Hard not to just roll up into a fetal position as the steamroller gets bigger and bigger.
Be careful, colleagues.
The same unspecified claims of unity to “prepare our students with the intellectual, social, and emotional skills necessary for success in a changing and often turbulent world” are being bought and sold by digital marketers.
The flowery claims of unity with charter and voucher promoters are lifted from the “Education Reimagined” project.
We are being used.
Emily Talmage writes:
“Anatomy of a Betrayal”
“In 2015, the heads of the National Education Association (NEA), received an invitation from a newly formed group known as “Convergence” to attend a series of meetings sponsored, in part, by the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative.”
“When Becky Pringle, Vice President of the NEA, looked at the list of attendees, she thought to herself, “I don’t think so – and by the way don’t take any pictures or tweet it out or I won’t be sittin’ here next year!”
“But within only a few months, the presidents of both major teachers unions had signed their names to a document, along with representatives from Samsung, Microscoft, LEGO, Disney, and a variety of corporate-sponsored foundations, that all but pledges to do away with the very professionals the unions claim to protect.”
https://emilytalmage.com/2017/03/22/anatomy-of-a-betrayal/
Mary,
If teachers treat their unions as their enemies, then there is no hope for the future. The reason that unions exist is to represent their members. If you don’t like the representation, take it to the union and fight it out. But destroying the unions with innuendo plays into the hands of Betsy DeVos and Trump and Jeb.
Unions are t the enemies but top down corporate unions that don’t consult their membership are the enemy. I’m not sure if the teachers unions are a hindrance or a help in the fight against charter schools. My local for example passed a resolution calling for an end to charter school expansion. But rather than promote our resolution or even educate members, our president, without a vote by our rep council, endorsed this statewide charter reform effort. And of course charters cannot be reformed, they must be removed.
Yes, we’re challenging those corrupt leaders. That’s what this post is about.
It isn’t an innuendo – the NEA is pressuring locals and states to participate in their campaign to undermine public education, without admitting what they’ve signed onto.
Gisele Huff is the right-wing billionaire on the stage with NEA VP Becky Pringle. She is the sworn enemy of public education, a voucher-charter fanatic allied with Jeb Bush and Betsy DeVos to impose for-profit virtual schools on public districts.
In her own words:
“Personalized learning is an idea whose time has come. The Foundation was an early supporter of Education Reimagined and I participated as one of 28 strange bedfellows in the production of its vision document (http://ow.ly/ZmPpn ). That document has become the North Star for the transformation of a 100-year old educational system which no longer serves America’s children. Among the other signatories of document are the two leaders of the NEA and AFT, evidence that there is a consensus for an entirely different approach to the learning experience.”
View at Medium.com
There is no such consensus. Members are unaware of the deal their leaders struck. Although it’s hard to fight entrenched power, I’m inviting NEA activists to come to NEARA this summer in Boston and we’ll take them on. Let’s do this.
I respectfully suggest that serious efforts need to be made to bring the stakeholder communities, in which school sites sit, to this table. That means, for instance in Los Angeles: parents, homeowners and renters, neighborhood councils, business organizations, local cultural resources, alumni, etc. If a more genuine democracy is to be achieved, it must include all stakeholders. It will be an extended, uphill struggle, but once accomplished, the base will be fortified with political, social and economic forces never heretofore assembled in support of public education. And don’t forget student involvement — what a wonderful teaching “moment” the effort will be.
The problem with this plan is that the UNited Teachers of Richmond did not endorse this. At least not the membership through our representative council. This plan was worked on by the president of our union along with other presidents, the Richmond Progressive Alliance, Public Core, and Some retired teachers. There was never any real effort to mobilize members. The issue is also that our members passed a resolution opposing the expansion of charter schools and calling for a camps otro educate our members and the community about the dangers of charter schools. In other words our members took a stand against to stop charters. This plan only seeks to reform charters, to make them more accountable to the public. So the genuine sentiment of our members is not expressed in this new plan and in fact was never voted on by our rep council. Even if they do approve it eventually it could be because members might not understand the subtle yet profound difference between reform and abolition. Imagine if people had focused their efforts on reforming slavery rather than abolishing it. Likewise charter schools are misguided on principle: it is wrong to divert public money to schools which aren’t public, and undermine the public interest in a myriad of ways. Don’t fall for the Oakie Doke. United Teachers of Richmond say “No more charters!”
You can check out our Facebook pages UTRnow
Defend Public Education Now
Kristyn Jones
sus UTR site rep
Defend Public Education Now
Sorry, I had quite a few errors in my post. What I meant to say is that our local UTR took a much more militant stand against charters. We passed a resolution calling for a moratorium essentially on charter schools. And also calling for a campaign to educate our members and the public about the dangers of charters. Instead of publicizing our resolution our president along decided to sign on to this plan. This plan is a step backward for us.
This article by far is one to take into consideration especially wanting to teach in California. It’s time to speak out more and fight for what is right and what we want to see on the education systems. I agree with unions joining parents and social groups to take a stand when it comes to our students education. We must all work together and know our facts and utilize all our resources on making a difference. If we support one another and challenge corrupt leaders like Trump and DeVos then we can speak for those who can’t. Its time to save our education!!!