Jesse Hagopian, a teacher activist in Seattle, immersed himself in the UTLA Strike in Los Angeles to learn what teachers won. He interviewed Gillian Russom, a history teacher at Roosevelt High School and member of the United Teachers of Los Angeles Board of Directors, about how the strike was organized, the significant gains it made for students, and implications for the ongoing uprising of teachers around the country..
This is what he learned.
The key lesson is that the model was the zchicago strike of 2012. Even though Karen Lewis stepped down due to her health issues, she and her vision continues to inspire teachers.
There’s been a long history around the country of progressive caucuses fighting for unions to be more active, and to have a broader vision and a broader set of alliances in our struggles. The Chicago 2012 strike and the work of CORE—Caucus of Rank and File Educators—leading up to that strike really helped to educate so many of us around the country and clarified our direction. I’ve been a teacher and union activist in Los Angeles for eighteen years and I studied what worked in Chicago and joined together with others to help bring those lessons here to LA.
In 2013, we pushed for a referendum within our union calling for a campaign for the “Schools LA Students Deserve.” This was modeled off of the Chicago teachers who based their strike around their own “schools our students deserve,” aiming to draw in parents, students, and the community.
Our agenda for union transformation basically came down to transforming the union from a top-down service model to an organizing model. We were crafting our agenda of union demands in conversation with community allies so that it would be an agenda that would draw the active participation of people beyond our own union membership. Up until 2014, we still had a model of one union rep for every school, including massive high schools of like 100 teachers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Organizing to be politically effective led to success for the union members, their schools and those in their communities… a great message going forward!
Tapping retirees for activism, also a good idea.
Also worth praising, the immediate backlash to research coming from think tanks, lobbying firms and corporate-funded university centers which, in reality, is agenda-driven e.g. rigor in kindergarten, and the papers and presentations of Pew, Brookings, BiPartisan Policy Center, CAP, NBER.
AFT and NEA should become quicker at recognizing and acting against adversaries in sheep’s clothing (1) professors e.g. those funded by Koch, Gates, Broad and Arnold
(2) board members e.g. the Maryland State Education Board (the self-serving may be hiding behind religious groups and minority organizations) (3) government administrators who are plants from foundations e.g. Gates, Koch, and Fordham (4) those who insinuate themselves through billionaire-paid astroturfing.
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