The United Teachers of Los Angeles went out on strike on January 14. The strike will end if the membership approves a new two-year contract. The union won almost everything it sought. The teachers will get a wage increase; the district will limit class sizes and eliminate a waiver that allowed class size limits to be voided for economic reasons; there will be full-time nurses in every school, a librarian, more counselors. And more.

Here is the union’s press release with the tentative agreement included.

Here is the New York Times summary:

Los Angeles public school teachers reached a tentative deal with school officials on Tuesday to end a weeklong strike that had upended learning for more than half a million students in the nation’s second largest public school system.

The teachers won a 6 percent pay raise and caps on class sizes, which had become one of the most contentious issues between the union and district officials. The deal also includes hiring full-time nurses for every school, as well as enough librarians for every middle and high school in the district by the fall of 2020.

The city and county will also expand programs into public schools, providing more support services for the neediest students.

The settlement came after tens of thousands of teachers marched in downtown Los Angeles and picketed outside schools for six school days, and after a round of marathon negotiating sessions over the holiday weekend.

In addition to winning resources that were badly needed, the union won on other fronts, first, by injecting charter schools into their demands; and second, by putting Democratic politicians on the spot.

The victory for the teachers’ union goes far beyond the new two-year contract. In recent years, teachers in Los Angeles and all over the country have often found themselves on the defensive, as politicians and educational leaders have demanded that more be done to weed out ineffective teachers.

The Los Angeles strike was the eighth major teacher walkout over the past year, as a movement that calls itself Red For Ed spread like wildfire from West Virginia to Oklahoma, Arizona, Chicago and beyond. But the strike in Los Angeles was a union-led one against Democratic leaders who are usually on their side. It also was one of the first to highlight one of the most controversial questions in education: whether charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed, hurt traditional schools.

The charter issue was explained like this: The board will be asked to endorse a resolution calling for a cap on charter schools, which this billionaire-bought board is unlikely to do. But the union put out there the fact that charter schools harm public schools, and politicians had to choose. As “widely popular” as charter schools are, only 10% of the kids in the state attend them, and only 20% in Los Angeles.

In a summary released by the union, the agreement also includes a pledge that the elected school board for the district will vote on a resolution asking the state to “establish a charter school cap” and create a governor’s committee on charter schools.

That would be a major shift in California, where charter schools have been widely embraced by political leaders and have proved popular among parents.

This agreement is a major victory for UTLA and promises better working conditions in the schools and better services for students.