Presidential candidates in the race to lead the United Teachers of Los Angeles faced tough questions and a rowdy audience last night, in the second forum of the campaign season. It was the first time all 10 candidates — Alex Caputo-Pearl, the incumbent Warren Fletcher, Bill Gaffney, David Garcia, Saul Lankster, Kevin Mottus, Marcos Ortega II, Innocent Osunwa, Leonard Segal and Gregg Solkovitz...

As campaigning begins in earnest at United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the second-largest teachers union in the country, the election for the presidency could be as much about ideology as which candidate has more foot-soldiers. The union has shown signs of deep fracture lately, and with just 20 percent of the union’s 35,000 members expected...

The Los Angeles teachers union election process is long – from February to July – and a lot like a reality show, with multiple voting rounds to knock out candidates/contestants, until finally, there’s only one person left standing. That’s especially true in the race for UTLA president, which has 10 men competing for the chance...

If Warren Fletcher is reelected president of the LA Unified teachers union, UTLA, it won’t be easy. At yesterday’s filing deadline, the union announced that eight others – all men — are challenging him for a three-year term that begins next year. The size of the field, which includes one current UTLA officer, Secondary Vice...

With the filing deadline tomorrow, a new candidate has emerged to challenge Warren Fletcher as president of UTLA. Kevin Mottus, who frequently appears at LA Unified school board meetings to warn of adverse health effects of wireless digital devices, is the latest among three challengers to file for running, according to the union’s most recent...

As daylight faded and red brake lights of rush hour cast their eerie glow, a group of LA Unified teachers and students marched through downtown streets yesterday, demanding a reversal of district policies that value testing over “authentic” learning. Drivers honked and pumped their fists in solidarity as students waived their banners: “Technology for Teaching,...

Despite all the sky-is-falling-rhetoric over the past week, things at LA Unified are much as they were: John Deasy is still the man in charge as superintendent, and teachers union president Warren Fletcher continues as his chief adversary. While Deasy was keeping out of the spotlight today — he was attending an event in Albuquerque...

Could a teacher strike be on the horizon? In ratcheting up pressure on LA Unified to negotiate for salary increases for its members, UTLA President Warren Fletcher is raising the specter of a strike as a way to force the issue. He writes in the latest issue of the union’s monthly, United Teacher, “In any...

The first step of running for office is raising money, and the UTLA Presidential election is no exception. In an email to would-be supporters this week, candidate Alex Caputo-Pearl set a fundraising goal of $100,000 by the end of the year for his slate of seven candidates, dubbed “Union Power.” “The Union Power slate has the...

The election campaign for president of the teachers union, UTLA, has expanded with a third candidate entering the race, joining the incumbent, Warren Fletcher, and a previously-announced challenger, Alex Caputo-Pearl, a member of the Progressive Educators for Action caucus within the union. The new candidate, David Garcia, is a former Navy corpsman and veteran of the first Gulf War...