TEACHERS FOR CHANGE ------November / December 2004
The Thorniest Issues of All
Teachers and Health and Human Service Workers are the single most important people in our society. Without them we would have no space exploration, no polio vaccine or cancer research, and those who legislate our future would not be able to read or write.
Yet, when the powers that be need to cut back on expenditures, we are the first to have our pockets picked. Worse still is the fact that our school budgets are also affected. So if the politicians we elect don’t take it out of our pockets, they raid school-site budgets, which diminishes our ability to teach effectively.
While all of this occurs, the district bureaucracy grows. In addition, school-based non-classroom support people are being overburdened, mismanaged and improperly used while UTLA does little, if anything, to stop these abuses. Math and literacy coaches, whose positions were created to help classroom teachers, are being used against their wishes as evaluators and substitute teachers. While I believe in the concept of coaches, I would like to see fewer of them and a cap on their total numbers. Then we can put the savings back into a mentor program.
The case load for psychologists, PSA workers, psychiatric social workers, nurses, etc. continues to grow and their ability to meet the needs of our students diminishes. Student to counselor ratios are already too high, this is pure madness. Is there anyone at district headquarters who remembers the school site and how valuable counselors and health and human service workers are? Too much is being asked of them while resources continue to decrease and district expectations continue to rise.
It’s about time for UTLA to effectively mobilize us to demand better pay and high quality health care. It‘s time to fight for a cost of living adjustment (COLA). A COLA for teachers and HHS workers is an idea whose time is at hand. It does not matter whether the times are good or bad. It’s time for us to fight from a position of power, because without us there would be no future. We must force the issue. Society must realize that education is the only key to the future. There should be attractive incentives to keep the good teachers and HHS workers in our profession and to attract the bright young minds from college.
How do we approach these critical issues?
1. Attack district mismanagement with vigor and consistency, privately and publicly.
2. Reach out to other unions to form a coalition for the sole purpose of acquiring and maintaining quality and affordable health care benefits.
3. Create a Manifesto for Public Education containing a basic set of principles.
These principles would become a part of our endorsement policy.
District Waste: When I am elected, I will form a committee whose sole purpose is to investigate the waste in LAUSD and make recommendations to cut back on the bloated bureaucracy. At the same time, I will call for a halt to the construction or refurbishing of all administrative buildings or offices. I will call for a halt to trips administrators take, for any purpose, because we simply can not afford this luxury. There must be an end to district conferences in hotels and an elimination of district cars. LAUSD must stop spending tens of millions of dollars on outside legal fees and consultants when they have their own lawyers and consultants. These are luxuries that students cannot afford and tax payers do not want to pay for. All of these must cease immediately in order to insure that our resources are used to benefit the classroom and fix every school from top to bottom. Once the district waste is eliminated, pay raises for teachers and health and human service workers is a real possibility.
Health Benefits: When I am elected, I will immediately get on the phone and start the process of organizing a state-wide meeting with the presidents of the 20 largest urban school districts, as well as CFT and CTA. We must begin to discuss the possibility of all state school districts pooling their money to form a consortium with enough clout to force health care, prescription drug, and dental care providers to create reasonable, affordable coverage for all of the state’s school district employees. I would not stop at California; I will contact other school districts throughout the West.
Manifesto on Public Education: We have helped many politicians to get elected and they have aided us in many ways. However, it’s time they stood with us and demand that we be true partners in education. We must to convince the legislature to cut back on state and district mandated testing. In addition, legislation must be enacted to give local districts the power to deal with the growing issue of chronic classroom discipline problems. The legislature’s job should be to put tax dollars where they will have the greatest lasting effect and that place is public education. The school site is the center of the universe and the classroom is the core of that universe! That’s where the resources belong!
It’s time we were treated with respect and accorded our rightful place in society, based upon the importance of the role that we play and the incredible job that we do.
